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63–054 PDF 2010

S. HRG. 111–765 

AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE: EMPOWERING HAITI 

TO REBUILD BETTER 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MAY 19, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

FRANK G. LOWENSTEIN, Staff Director

KENNETH A. MYERS, JR., Republican Staff Director

(II)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Casey, Hon. Robert P., Jr., U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, opening statement ...................................................................................................................... 1 

Corker, Hon. Bob, U.S. Senator from Tennessee, statement ............................... 5 

Kaufman, Hon. Edward E., U.S. Senator from Delaware, statement ................. 6 

Kerry, Hon. John F., U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, statement ................... 49 

Merten, Hon. Kenneth H., U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, Department of State, 

Port-au-Prince, Haiti ............................................................................................ 11 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 14 

Response to question submitted for the record by Senator Russell D. 

Feingold ......................................................................................................... 62 

Milligan, T. Christopher, Coordinator for Disaster Response in Haiti, U.S. 

Agency for International Development, Washington, DC ................................. 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 8 

Responses to questions submitted for the record by Senator Richard 

G. Lugar ......................................................................................................... 63 

Responses to questions submitted for the record by Senator Russell D. 

Feingold ......................................................................................................... 65 

Natsios, Hon. Andrew S., distinguished professor, School of Foreign Service, 

Georgetown University, Washington, DC .......................................................... 29 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 33 

Penn, Sean, founder, J/P Haitian Relief Organization, San Francisco, CA ........ 38 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 41 

Schneider, Mark, senior vice president, International Crisis Group, Washington, DC ............................................................................................................. 42 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 45 

ADDITIONAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Dodd, Hon. Christopher J., U.S. Senator from Connecticut, prepared statement ...................................................................................................................... 61 

(III)

(1) 

AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE: EMPOWERING 

HAITI TO REBUILD BETTER 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room SD– 

419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Robert P. Casey, Jr., 

presiding. 

Present: Senators Casey, Kerry, Shaheen, Kaufman, Gillibrand, 

and Corker. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., 

U.S. SENATOR FROM PENNSYLVANIA 

Senator CASEY. The hearing will come to order. 

I want to thank everyone for being here this morning. This is a 

critically important issue that we need to spend a good deal of time 

on this morning, and I’m grateful you’re all here to do this. 

The committee meets to discuss the effectiveness of the international response efforts 4 months after an earthquake devastated 

Haiti, and examine what remains to be done in cooperation with 

the Haitian Government and the international community. This 

discussion is particularly important as we transition from recovery 

efforts to rebuilding. 

I’d like to thank all of our witnesses for their personal commitment to helping Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake. On Monday, we know that Secretary Clinton honored 11 United States officials who perished in Haiti’s earthquake. I also want to recognize 

their public service in the demonstration of America’s goodwill 

abroad. 

With us today to discuss United States Government efforts in 

Haiti are Christopher Milligan and Kenneth Merten. Mr. Milligan 

is coordinating the largest joint relief effort that the United States 

has undertaken to date. His success suggests that investments in 

disaster situation relief training and preparation at USAID have 

paid off. Over the last 20 years, Ambassador Merten has worked 

on development issues in Haiti, and has played a critical role in 

helping to save lives. 

I also look forward to hearing the testimonies of our nongovernment witnesses, each of whom has substantial experience working 

on international development issues. Andrew Natsios served as 

USAID Administrator during the Bush administration. Sean Penn 

cofounded the Jenkins-Penn Haiti Relief Group. And Mark Schneider is a former United States Agency for International DevelopVerDate Nov 24 2008 18:25 Dec 17, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\HEARING FILES\2010 ISSUE HEARINGS TO PREPARE FOR PRINTING\ISSUE HEARIN
2 

ment official who coordinated the U.S. response to Hurricane Mitch 

in 1998. He is now a senior vice president of the International Crisis Group. 

Much progress has been made during this post-disaster period in 

Haiti, which I’ll review in a few moments, but the scale of this 

tragedy cannot be underestimated, and we must redouble our 

efforts to better coordinate relief and rebuilding work among the 

international community and with the Haitian Government. The 

United States has a special responsibility to play a leading role in 

rallying the international community to make good on its commitments. 

I fear—and I know this is a fear that’s widely shared—that as 

the number of days since the earthquake grow, the resolve and 

focus of the international community diminishes. I hope—I hope 

that the witnesses today can reassure me that that is not the case. 

We all have an obligation to make sure that that is not the case. 

I know that people on the ground are committed, experienced, 

and dedicated to the task at hand, but it is our responsibility here 

in Congress to ask how this critically important endeavor can be 

moved faster, more efficiently and with a greater sense of urgency, 

which sometimes isn’t the case in Washington, DC. But, we’ve got 

to have a greater sense of urgency to get the job done and to make 

sure that Haiti does, indeed, rebuilt better, not just to some other 

predisaster level, but rebuild, in fact, in a better way for the future 

of the Haitian people. 

In the aftermath of the disaster, the United States deployed 

22,000 personnel to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Haiti 

in support of the Haitian Government and the U.N. stabilization 

mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH. The USAID was first on 

the ground and led a 544-person disaster assistance response team 

to assess immediate needs and to provide urgent supplies of food, 

water, medical care, and other aid to 1.5 million survivors left 

homeless by the quake. The agency also established an interagency 

task force to better coordinate relief efforts, partnering with large 

and small organizations in Haiti to bring shelter, health care, and 

employment opportunities to Haitians. Twenty-thousand members 

of the United States military distributed food, water, and medical 

supplies. Faced with large numbers of displaced children, the 

Department of State stepped up efforts to help prevent child 

trafficking. 

More than 100 U.N. staff, including senior mission leadership, 

were among the more than hundreds of thousands of dead in the 

massive earthquake, representing the biggest single loss of life in 

the history of U.N. peacekeeping. Despite these losses and displacement from mission headquarters MINUSTAH has continued its 

mission of maintaining a secure and stable environment throughout Haiti. It continues to support many nongovernmental organizations that operated in Haiti prior to the disaster through security 

for international—or, for internally, I should say, displaced persons, road clearance, rubble removal, and other vital assistance. 

Despite the immediate response from the international community and private citizens around the world, more than a million displaced Haitians are living in squatter communities and remain at 

risk as hurricane season approaches. That is an understatement, to 

3 

say that they’re at risk. It’s difficult to overstate the destruction 

wrought by this earthquake and the challenges that lie ahead. 

Many people who have traveled to Haiti after the June 12th 

earthquake have said, ‘‘No one can come to Haiti and leave unchanged.’’ The official death toll stands at 230,000 people, including 

104 Americans and hundreds of international aid workers. Many 

experts believe that the death toll will rise to a half a million 

people. 

Even before the earthquake, Haiti had the highest maternal mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere, and approximately 120,000 

people were living with HIV/AIDS. Public hospitals, before the 

tragedy, lacked staff, drugs, and equipment, and numerous factors 

impeded access to health care services. The earthquake has worsened the situation substantially. Haiti’s Ministry of Health estimated that over 60 percent of the medical structures in the areas 

most affected by the earthquake were damaged or destroyed and 

forced large numbers of the population into makeshifts camps, 

where hygiene and medical care are substandard, at best. 

Post-earthquake food and water insecurity is another substantial 

challenge. There’s a 50-percent increase in the price of food staples 

over the past year in Haiti and across the country. The media are 

filled with stories and images of unrest due to soaring food prices 

and pervasive hunger. Most Haitians earn less than a dollar a day 

and spend more than half their income—spend more than half 

their income on food. 

There are—these are among the many challenges we confront. On March 31, pledges of more than $15 billion were made at the 

International Donors Conference in New York, which was attended 

by more than 100 countries and international organizations. 

Haitian authorities described the outpouring as, ‘‘testimony that 

Haiti is not alone.’’ 

Now that the Donors Conference is over and officials have returned to Port-au-Prince, the real work begins. We must match dollars to the pledges and ensure that the international efforts result 

in a Haitian state and society ‘‘built back better,’’ to use the words 

of former President Clinton, who has done great work over many 

years in support of Haitian development. 

Devising programs that achieve concrete, sustainable results on 

a nationwide scale will not be easy. As Secretary of State Clinton 

has said, in her opening remarks at the conference, ‘‘This is not 

only a conference about what we financially pledge to Haiti, we 

have to pledge to do better ourselves.’’ And, of course, she’s referring to post-disaster rebuilding. 

Among the long-term goals envisioned in the Action Plan for 

Reconstruction and National Development in Haiti, which was unveiled by President Preval at the Donors Conference, is a decentralized country based on smaller nodes of population in areas less 

prone to natural disaster than Port-au-Prince. The plan also targets agricultural self-sufficiency and stricter building codes. Also 

important is the development of an education system that does not 

have more than one-quarter—one-quarter—of Haitian children outside its doors, which was the case before the earthquake. 

Reconstruction efforts must include revamping of the child welfare system and adoption policies. With black markets difficult to 

4 

quantify, there is no precise count of the number of orphanages in 

Haiti, the numbers of children living in them, or the numbers of 

Haitian children who are victims of trafficking, although UNICEF 

does estimate the number in the tens of thousands per year. 

There’s a growing concern that Haiti’s already strained child welfare system is overwhelmed and that inadequate orphanages are 

taking in more children than they can handle. 

International aid will be funneled through a new Interim Haiti 

Recovery Commission, headed jointly by the U.N. special envoy to 

Haiti, former President Clinton, and Haitian Prime Minister 

Bellerive. One of the stated priorities of the Haitian Interim Commission will be to show that commitments made—will be to show 

the commitments made, I should say, and money disbursed. At the 

same time, the Commission faces a dual challenge of ensuring accountability for the billions of dollars, while resisting the deceleration or bottlenecking of funds. We’ll be asking about that today. 

The Commission will also have a critical role in improving donor 

coordination. International nongovernmental organizations and 

donors have saturated Port-au-Prince and overwhelmed Haitian 

institutions. Experts remind us—and I know we have a number 

here today—that short-term and long-term objectives are not a 

zero-sum game. Approaches to short-term needs, like shelter and 

job creation, must complement a wider state-building strategy. According to former President Clinton, ‘‘Until Haitians can live, day 

to day, and month to month, in healthy conditions and out of danger, it will be useless to expect the country to commit wholeheartedly to a long-term national reconstruction plan. We still have 

to move 20- to 40,000 people from flood-prone camps before the 

rains hit, in July, so that they are not at risk of drowning.’’ So said 

President Clinton, and we should listen to his words, and act on 

them. 

The U.S. Congress has taken a number of steps to help, here. 

Senator Dodd introduced a bill, which was signed into law April 26, 

calling for cancellation of Haiti’s $1 billion outstanding debt. The 

economic lift program, the so-called HELP Act backed by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, was passed early this month. The 

law expands duty-free access to United States markets for Haitian 

textile and apparel exports, and extends existing trade preferences 

for Haiti through the year 2020. 

Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee committed $2.8 

billion to support relief efforts in Haiti. Currently, this committee 

is considering legislation, the Haiti Empowerment Assistance and 

Renewal Act, by Senators Kerry, our chairman, and Senator 

Corker, who’s with us today—and we’re honored by his presence, 

and you’ll hear from him in a moment; I’m almost done—to authorize $31⁄2 billion of assistance over 5 years for reconstruction and rebuilding of Haiti. 

So, as we move, today, to discuss Haiti’s future, we have an obligation to do our part, that the international efforts are effective, 

that it’s not just about the dollars we put in, but whether the lives 

of the Haitian people are changed—changed—as a result of this 

work. 

Haiti has its own obligations. One is to be inclusive of all of its 

citizens—men, women, and children. There are a lot of wealthy, 

5 

privileged people in Haiti, and also many, many poor Haitians, as 

well. All of them are Haitians. All of them are part of the strategy, 

going forward. 

This process won’t work without Haitian Government—governance, I should say, and leadership, which has an obligation to be 

transparent. International donors and the Haitian Government 

understand that a peaceful transition, next February, to a duly 

elected President is vital to the country’s economic development 

and stability. 

Parliamentary elections also need to be held. Last February’s 

elections were canceled because of the earthquake, leading to the 

expiration last week of the Haitian Parliament’s mandate. President Preval is now the sole constitutional authority; thus, we urge 

Haitian’s leaders to unite in the common interests of organizing 

free and fair elections in the shortest timeframe possible. Pulling 

off an election is daunting in a country where voter lists have 

largely been destroyed and where 40 percent of the citizens do not 

have identity documents. Despite these challenges, elections are 

central to Haiti’s vision for a renewed state. 

President Obama has said, ‘‘America’s commitment to Haiti’s recovery and reconstruction must endure, and will endure.’’ He also 

said, ‘‘This pledge is one that I make at the beginning of the crisis, 

that I intend for America to keep our pledge: American will be your 

partner in the recovery and reconstruction efforts.’’ 

In order to remain true to that pledge, I believe there are several 

concrete steps that we must focus on in the days and months 

ahead, and I’ll be, of course, asking our witnesses about this. 

No. 1, hurricane season is coming. We can and must do everything in our power to ensure that Haiti is prepared so that reconstruction efforts are not set back. 

No. 2, we must rally—and that’s an understatement—the international community to ensure that pledges are fulfilled and money 

is spent responsibly and strategically. 

No. 3, we must push for better coordination on the ground among 

the various actors who are there. 

No. 4, and final, we must encourage the Haitian Government to 

play a responsible role during this period. The Haitian people 

should have a role in determining local needs and reconstruction 

priorities. Voices from outside the government should be heard, 

and the government should clearly communicate in development 

activities across the whole of Haiti. 

We’re joined today by an esteemed panel of experts who will discuss the many challenges confronting the international donors and 

the Haitian Government. Our first witness is Christopher Milligan, 

USAID’s coordinator for disaster response in Haiti. Our second witness is the Honorable Kenneth Merten, U.S. Ambassador to Haiti 

since August 2009. And I’ll be introducing our second panel very 

soon. 

But, I’d like to turn to our ranking member, Senator Corker, for 

his remarks. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BOB CORKER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM TENNESSEE 

Senator CORKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

6 

And I want to thank all of you for coming. 

And in a desire to hear from our witnesses, I’m going to be very, 

very brief. But, as has been stated, one of the biggest natural disasters ever, on January 12, 230,000 people losing their lives, 300,000 

injured, 3 million people affected. 

It’s amazing how many people in this country have a direct relationship with Haiti. I know we have people who are giving of their 

personal resources to help. I probably would not be here in the Senate today without that same type experience in my twenties. And 

I know people across our country want to make sure that we deal 

with this appropriately. 

I think there are still folks trying to help there. I know of a lady, 

named Bertha Dudone, who’s a Haitian citizen, who was approved 

for travel outside of the country to Tennessee, to Vanderbilt Hospital, where surgeons can deal with a life-threatening issue, and 

yet we cannot, still, get her out of the country. And so, it’s those 

kind of things, I know, that are exasperating many of the efforts 

that are taking place. 

On the other hand, USAID, the United Nations, our State 

Department, I think have done an outstanding job in trying to deal 

with this. And I know all of us just want to see this move along 

as quickly as possible. 

So, I thank all of you for coming. I think that Haiti, for years— 

you know, we’ve tried to figure out a way to help Haiti get it right. 

And, you know, we’ve been through all kinds of episodes. This is 

an incredible disaster, but possibly there’s an opportunity, with so 

many donors around the world coming together, to help Haiti get 

it more right than ever this time. And I think that’s what all of 

us want to see happen. 

Senator Kerry and myself have introduced legislation that establishes benchmarks to move us along that path. I certainly—I’d look 

forward to hearing your comments on that. 

But, the fact is that we have some immediate needs, we have 

some midterm needs, and certainly some long-term issues that we 

need to deal with as a country, as a world community, and we 

thank you for your testimony today. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you, Senator Corker. And I appreciate 

your work on this, and your presence here today. 

Senator Kaufman had some opening comments. 

STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM DELAWARE 

Senator KAUFMAN. Yes, I just wanted to say—I just want to 

thank you, both Senators, for convening—this is very important. 

Do not read into this fact that many Senators are not here as 

any diminution of the importance to which my colleagues find getting it right in Haiti. I mean, I think that—to go to the remarks 

that were given, I can associate myself with all those. But, I mean, 

just the basic things, the basic government, basic water, food, housing—I mean, we’re committed—this country is committed to it, the 

Senate’s committed to it. I want to thank you very much for what 

you’re doing. But, we all support this. This is absolutely incredible, 

that this does not—we get to use this as an example, as Senator 

7 

Corker say, as a wake-up call to move forward and get some of 

these very basic needs straightened out for Haiti. 

So, I want thank you, again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 

hearing. Thank the ranking member. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you, Senator Kaufman. 

And, of course, we’re able to have this hearing because our chairman made it a priority, and we’re grateful for Senator Kerry. And 

we’ll have Senators coming in and out. 

So, Mr. Milligan, why don’t you start. 

STATEMENT OF T. CHRISTOPHER MILLIGAN, COORDINATOR 

FOR DISASTER RESPONSE IN HAITI, U.S. AGENCY FOR 

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. MILLIGAN. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am 

honored to join you here today. 

Last Wednesday marked the 4-month anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Haiti. The scale of the destruction cannot 

be overstated. Hundreds of thousands lost their lives, millions were 

left without shelter, water, food, and electricity. 

Traditional first responders—the Government of Haiti, the 

United Nations, the in-country NGOs—were left, devastated. Dozens of U.S. Government employees, including our dedicated Foreign 

Service nationals, suffered their own losses. 

That said, moments of crises can unite people. We saw how 

Haitians came together to pull each other out of the rubble, bridging economic and social divides. We have also seen the tremendous 

generosity of the American people. One out of every two families 

in this country contributed to the relief, thousands more have 

volunteered. 

The day after the earthquake, President Obama asked USAID 

Administrator Shah to lead a swift, coordinated, and aggressive 

response. In the days and weeks that followed, USAID leveraged 

talents and resources throughout the Federal Government in a synchronized effort. 

Together, the international community launched an impressive 

and unprecedented response that saved lives and alleviated suffering. While significant challenges remain, we have seen some unparalleled successes. U.S. search and rescue teams took part in the 

most successful international rescue effort to date, saving 132 lives. 

Through the World Food Programme, we participated in the largest 

urban food distribution ever, feeding more than 3.5 million people. 

U.S. medical teams treated more than 30,000 patients and performed hundreds of surgeries. 

With the international community, we’ve supported the delivery 

of emergency shelter to earthquake victims at an unprecedented 

rate, providing 1.5 million people with basic shelter, and we’ve 

helped to vaccinate close to 900,000 people against common 

diseases. 

Our community development programs, on average, are employing 24,000 Haitians, getting money directly into the pockets of 

those Haitians who need it most. 

These efforts have had real impacts on the ground. For example, 

people have access to more clean water now than they did prior to 

8 

the earthquake. Therefore, we’ve seen a reduction in diarrhea illnesses by 12 percent from preearthquake levels. 

But, let me be clear, the challenges before us are formidable. The 

road ahead will not be easy. And many of the hardships that Haiti 

faces existed long before the earthquake and present even greater 

challenges now. 

USAID’s relief and development expertise was critical in coordinating the successful initial humanitarian assistance effort, and 

this expertise will be critical as we move toward longer term reconstruction activities. 

We’ve had some very positive consultations with your committee 

staff on the Haitian Empowerment Assistance and Rebuilding Act, 

and we appreciate the consultative process to date. 

The Government of Haiti has, through its Action Plan for 

National Recovery and Development, made great strides in identifying its needs and priorities. Supporting this plan will require a 

long-term commitment on the part of the international community, 

the spirit of which is reflected in the proposed legislation. We applaud the chairman and Senator Corker for their leadership on this 

issue. 

We agree with the broad objectives laid out in the bill and the 

statement of need in Haiti. The situation on the ground is changing 

daily, and, for that reason, maximum flexibility is needed as we 

address the ongoing crisis. 

As the coordinator for disaster response in Haiti, I want to thank 

Congress for its support, which has saved lives and alleviated suffering. Without a doubt, there will be setbacks on the way, but I 

am confident that, with the continued work of the international 

community and the talent of American public servants, we can 

overcome these short-term obstacles and tackle bigger ones. With 

your support, we will do everything we can to continue the humanitarian efforts and help the people of Haiti build back better. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Milligan follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF T. CHRISTOPHER MILLIGAN, COORDINATOR FOR DISASTER

RESPONSE IN HAITI, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (USAID), 

WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am honored to join you here today. 

I would like to thank you personally for your support of the relief and reconstruction 

efforts in Haiti and for your commitment to the Haitian people. 

Last Wednesday marked the 4-month anniversary of the devastating earthquake 

in Haiti. It is hard to overstate the scale of the destruction caused on January 12. 

Hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives. Millions of Haitians were left without shelter, water, food, or electricity. Traditional first responders, the Government 

of Haiti, United Nations, and NGOs working in-country were left devastated. Dozens of U.S. Government employees, including our dedicated Foreign Service Nationals in Haiti, suffered their own losses. It’s a tragedy and a grieving process that continues to this day. 

That said, moments of crisis can unite people around a common goal and a sense 

of shared purpose—and we’ve seen that this is the case in Haiti. We saw how Haitians came together to pull people out of the rubble in ways that bridged economic 

and cultural divides. Neighborhoods emptied into the streets, and all Haitians 

shared the same fears and common challenges from the catastrophe that struck 

their country. 

We also have seen the tremendous generosity of the American people in this tragedy. One out of every two families in the United States has contributed to the relief 

efforts. Many thousands of people have volunteered in Haiti to provide medical relief, distribute commodities, or to manage a settlement of displaced people. The reVerDate Nov 24 2008 18:25 Dec 17, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\HEARING FILES\2010 ISSUE HEARINGS TO PREPARE FOR PRINTING\ISSUE HEARIN
9 

sponse of the American people demonstrates to the world our true nature and how 

we seek to improve the lives and well-being of others. 

The day after the earthquake, President Obama asked USAID Administrator 

Rajiv Shah to lead a ‘‘swift, coordinated, and aggressive’’ response. In the days and 

weeks that followed, USAID leveraged talents and resources throughout the Federal 

Government in a synchronized effort—bringing our development experience to 

bear—to support the efforts of the Government of Haiti, the U.N., and the international community. 

Together the international community launched an impressive response that not 

only saved lives and alleviated suffering, but also helped create renewed international cohesion and momentum upon which to rebuild Haiti. While significant 

challenges still remain, we have seen some tremendous successes thus far. 

• Search and Rescue teams from throughout the United States took part in the 

most successful international rescue effort in history, with over 40 teams from 

around the world saving 132 people trapped in the rubble. 

• Through the World Food Programme, we participated in the largest urban food 

distribution operation ever, feeding more than 3.5 million people. 

• U.S. Disaster Medical Assistance Teams, deployed internationally for the first 

time, saw more than 30,000 patients and performed hundreds of surgeries. 

Medical teams aboard the USNS Comfort provided life-saving treatment for 

hundreds of the most critically injured trauma victims. 

• We’ve supported the delivery of emergency shelter to earthquake victims at an 

unprecedented rate, and, together with the international community, achieved 

the goal of providing 1.5 million people with some form of basic shelter assistance by May 1, 2010, prior to the start of hurricane season. 

• We’ve helped vaccinate close to 900,000 adults and children against common 

diseases in an effort to prevent major outbreaks of illness. A second round of 

immunizations among IDP will begin in June. 

• Our community development programs are on average employing more than 

24,000 workers every day—not only getting money directly into the pockets of 

those Haitians who need it most, but most importantly jump-starting the economic recovery through rubble removal, initial reconstruction work, and mitigating against potential weather-related disasters. 

• Together with the Joint Task Force–Haiti and Navy Seabees who took the lead 

on ensuring drainage canals were cleared, and life-saving measures were in 

place before the rains, we’ve helped to protect 40,000 Haitians who were in imminent danger of losing their lives. 

• The U.S. private sector, as reported by the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy (as of May 12), raised over $1.3 billion for the U.S. nonprofits surveyed to respond to the earthquake in Haiti. This includes funding that resulted 

from President Obama’s request to Presidents Clinton and Bush to lead a private-sector fund-raising effort. 

These results are impressive, and they reflect the work of thousands of individuals from across the Federal Government and around the globe. In the area of 

health, for example, our efforts in providing access to water and sanitation, national 

disease surveillance, post-quake access to health care, prepositioning of essential 

medicines, vaccination campaigns, and malaria and dengue control efforts contributed to the prevention of significant outbreaks. By providing chlorine tablets to purify drinking water, we have been able to give more people access to clean water 

than before the earthquake hit. That effort has led to real impacts on the ground— 

already we’ve seen a 12-percent reduction in diarrheal illness in Port-au-Prince. 

That’s a 12-percent reduction from preearthquake levels. 

That said, let me be clear: the challenges before us are formidable. The road 

ahead will not be easy, and many of the hardships Haiti faces—endemic poverty, 

difficulty getting lifesaving medicines when needed, lack of meaningful economic opportunities, gaps in the government’s provision of basic services, maneuvering the 

cities congested streets—existed long before the January 12th earthquake and, simply, present even greater challenges now. 

USAID’s humanitarian assistance expertise—worldwide and in Haiti—was crucial 

in coordinating one of the largest and one of the most successful U.S. Government 

humanitarian responses in history. The Agency’s development expertise is increasingly critical as we move toward longer term reconstruction activities that address 

these hardships and advance the priorities set by the Government of Haiti. 

We will remain committed to working with the people and Government of Haiti 

for the long term. We have closely examined how we can help Haiti build back better and how we can help build internal capacity in Haiti’s Government, civil society, 

10 

and private sector to allow it to better serve its citizens and break free of the poverty that has limited its potential for so long. 

In doing so, we will continue to work in close partnership with a number of other 

U.S. Government agencies, especially the Department of State, but also the Department of Defense, Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Agriculture, and 

others, and we’ll focus on areas and sectors where we can add the greatest value: 

• Promoting economic growth by expanding agriculture and infrastructure, including housing; 

• Improving security and governance; 

• Investing in infrastructure and energy; 

• Supporting sustainable health care. 

The magnitude of the challenge requires an international response, so we are 

working to leverage resources and work with the international community to support the strategic decisions made by the Haitian people and their Government. 

Reconstruction will be a shared effort, and the U.S. Government will work with the 

Government of Haiti and the international community to ensure that the activities 

of each donor are a reflection of their comparative advantage. 

We are committed to working with the Government of Haiti, the private sector, 

and civil society to develop accountable and transparent systems that allow us to 

track funding every step of the way, ensure coordination, and maximize the effectiveness of our investments. 

The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission or IHRC, which was recently approved 

by the Haitian legislature, will play a key role in ensuring transparency and accountability of donor funds. The IHRC will allow for Haitian-led planning, sequencing, and prioritization of projects—for example, it will help ensure that a hospital 

is not built without a road that can reach it. It will also provide greater efficiency 

in the reconstruction phase as donors coordinate and harmonize their investments 

with Haiti’s plan, identifying gaps and limiting duplication of effort. The IHRC will 

manage a publicly available ‘‘aid platform’’ database, which will serve as a central 

location for information on the allocation and management of resources and funding. 

This allows for increased transparency and accountability in the utilization of 

resources. 

USAID and the Department of State are committed to engaging the Haitian diaspora in our reconstruction and development programming. The diaspora is a tremendous resource, not only in the close to $2 billion they provide annually in remittances—amounting to approximately 30 percent of Haiti’s GDP—but also in their 

language skills, cultural understanding, and diverse technical skills. The reconstruction and development of Haiti must ultimately be led and sustained by the people 

of Haiti if it is to be successful, and that requires nurturing local capacity. The diaspora can work side by side with the Haitian community to develop the skills needed 

to truly build back better. 

We are integrating the lessons we’ve learned from 30 years of work in Haiti and 

50 in development internationally to respond quickly and effectively to the most 

critical needs, while planning for longer term reconstruction of the country. We are 

also applying a very critical eye to what’s worked in the past and what hasn’t—and 

focusing our efforts only on those activities that will have the greatest impact on 

sustainably improving the lives of Haitians, giving U.S. taxpayers the biggest return 

on their investments in Haiti. 

The overarching principles I’ve laid out before the committee—Haitian-led, inclusive, accountable, transparent and coordinated—are very much in line with the 

principles set forth in the Haiti Empowerment, Assistance, and Rebuilding Act of 

2010. The Government of Haiti has, through its Action Plan for National Recovery 

and Development of Haiti, made great strides in identifying its needs and priorities. 

Supporting this plan will require a long-term commitment on the part of the international community, the spirit of which is reflected in the proposed legislation. 

We have had several very positive conversations with your committee staff on the 

recently introduced legislation, S. 3317 Haiti Empowerment, Assistance, and 

Rebuilding Act of 2010, and appreciate the consultative process your staff has engaged in as you drafted your legislation. 

We applaud the chairman and Senator Corker for their leadership on this issue. 

We agree with the broad objectives laid out in the bill and the statement of need 

in Haiti. The situation on the ground is changing daily, and for that reason, maximum flexibility is needed as we address the ongoing crisis in Haiti. For instance, 

in a year, Haiti could have a new government in place. Given the uncertainties that 

lie ahead, it would be our suggestion to provide the administration and those of us 

on the ground greater flexibility and to allow us to work closely with you on how 

to best implement our programs. 

11 

As the Coordinator for Disaster Response in Haiti, I want to thank Congress for 

its support for and involvement in efforts to date. Your support, and the support 

of your constituents, have enabled my colleagues throughout the Federal Government and me—in partnership with the nonprofit and international communities— 

to save lives and mitigate the suffering of millions in Haiti. Our Agency is committed to honoring the trust that Congress and the American people have placed 

in us by making investments in Haiti that are sustainable, scalable, and lead to 

self-sufficiency. The recent congressional passage of the bipartisan Haiti Economic 

Lift Program (HELP) Act will help promote such sustainable development by expanding duty-free access to the U.S. market for Haitian textile and apparel exports 

and extending existing trade preference programs for Haiti. 

I have worked in development for the last 20 years, including in Iraq, PostSuharto Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, and in Vietnamese refugee camps in the 

Philippines. I know that the scale and scope of the challenges that confront Haiti 

are immense. Without a doubt, there will be setbacks along the way. But I am confident that with the continued work of the international community and the talent 

of American public servants participating in this effort, we can overcome these 

short-term obstacles and substantively tackle bigger ones. 

With your support, we will do everything we can to continue this successful humanitarian effort in Haiti while building the foundations for meaningful, 

measureable, and transformative change for its people. I truly believe that we have 

a seminal opportunity to help Haiti build back better, and to put it on a path to 

a much better future. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Milligan. 

Ambassador Merten. 

What I failed to do at the beginning, which I should always do, 

is, if you can—you were pretty good about time? We want try to 

limit time. All of your statements, by the way, will be made part 

of the record, so if there’s something you miss, it’ll be in the record. 

If you can try to do it in, maybe, 5 minutes, that’ll be great. 

Ambassador MERTEN. Do my best. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF HON. KENNETH H. MERTEN, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO HAITI, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, PORT-AU-PRINCE, 

HAITI 

Ambassador MERTEN. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, 

I’m honored to join you here today. 

As you know, Haiti suffered a massive 7.0 earthquake on January 12, with an epicenter just southwest of Port-au-Prince. An estimated 2 million people lived within the earthquake zone. Those 35 

seconds changed the face of a nation that was already the poorest 

in our hemisphere. The quake left 230,000 dead, and displaced 

more than 1.2 million, and generated billions of dollars of damages 

in reconstruction costs. 

Assisting Haiti in recovery and rebuilding is a massive undertaking that requires a well-coordinated, well-funded, Government-ofHaiti-led effort. The outpouring of international support has been 

tremendous. But, it’s not only about the numbers, it’s about the 

Haitian people and those from around the world who have been 

united in partnering with them. 

On behalf of the Embassy staff, I’d like to convey my gratitude 

to Congress, and especially this committee, for its continued concern and unflagging support of Haiti, its people, and those of us on 

tours in the country. 

I have been involved with Haiti on and off for more than 20 

years. This is my third tour there, and I have served as a counselor 

officer, later as chief of the economic section, and have worked for 

12 

the special advisers on Haiti. I have seen, firsthand, the progress 

the nation has made, making it even more devastating to witness 

the destruction of the earthquake—physical, social, and economic. 

In my 23 years in the Foreign Service, I have never been prouder 

of the work that I am doing and the people with whom I serve. In 

the face of the tragedy, more than a third of us lost our homes and 

all of us have had a family member, friend, or colleague die or suffer injury. We came together and worked to do all we could for 

those in need. 

Many Haitians do not refer to the earthquake by name. They call 

it ‘‘bagay la,’’ meaning ‘‘the thing.’’ They ask each other, ‘‘Where 

were you when ’bagay la’ happened?’’ 

I want to share a couple of examples from Embassy personnel on 

what happened that night. 

After the quake, assistant regional security officer Pete Kolshorn, 

who lived on a ridgeline, immediately left through the door of his 

house and looked for his neighbors, who were also Embassy employees. From the neighbor’s house, he jumped over the ridge and 

down about two stories and saw an Embassy officer buried up to 

her waist, her face covered with dirt and blood, and calling for 

help. He saw her husband, moving with spasms to try and free 

himself. Beyond him, Kolshorn saw an arm protruding from the 

wreckage. Without a thought for his own safety, he threw a hose 

over the cliff, scaled down shear rock to reach the victims, and, 

with the assistance of one of the Embassy’s local guard force, began 

to rescue those three colleagues. All three were seriously injured, 

two with serious head wounds. With the help of other neighbors, 

Kolshorn brought all three up the cliff, where there were two 

doctors. 

That same night, assistant regional security officer Rob Little 

covered Port-au-Prince on motorcycle, visiting every employee’s residence to check on them, particularly in cases where we had not 

been able to contact them via radio. He helped us determine, that 

night, the whereabouts of our employees, and as he did so, in total 

darkness, with streets thronged with homeless people and blocked 

in many cases, by rocks, trees, houses, and bodies. 

These are just two stories of the heroic efforts that occurred in 

the hours and days following the quake. Our conference room 

became an emergency operating room. We evacuated over 16,000 

American citizens back to the United States, including my wife and 

two daughters. This is one of the largest evacuations since World 

War II. We delivered humanitarian aid, food, and water, and seldom slept more than 4 hours. Many of us slept under our desks, 

in the hallways, or in tents. I slept on a canvas cot in the Embassy 

for 3 weeks, because I could not get back to my house. 

Indeed, it was the funds granted to the Haiti mission by Congress that allowed us to build a resilient U.S. Embassy in Port-auPrince, which was completed in 2008. This became a safe haven for 

so many after the quake, and, frankly, helped us expedite the rescue effort, I would guess, by about 5 days. Our efforts would not 

have been possible, let alone successful, without the support of colleagues across the government and around the world. We had more 

volunteers than we had desks for them sleep under. 

13 

The State Department and USAID and countless other agencies 

supported us, as we supported each other, in the most selfless of 

ways. Today, we remain committed to supporting the government 

and people of Haiti as they seek to build back better. 

In my confirmation hearing last July, I stated that in the aftermath of the tropical storms of 2006 and 2008, Haiti simply did not 

have the resources to rebound from such setbacks. That observation is even more true today. 

We have much to be proud of. The United States Government’s 

responsiveness to date, and the results that we have achieved 

working with the Government of Haiti and our international partners, has been great. Now, however, is a period of transition from 

the most critical humanitarian relief efforts to long-term development. The International Donors Conference of March 31 sent a 

clear message: donors and the Government of Haiti are committed 

to working together to make the vision that the Government of 

Haiti presented for its country a reality. The Conference raised billions in pledges for Haiti’s reconstruction. On behalf of the United 

States, Secretary Clinton pledged $1.15 billion over 2 years to help 

Haiti lay the foundation for long-term, sustainable development. In 

so doing, the United States, together with the Government of Haiti 

and other donors, committed to hold itself to the highest levels of 

transparency, and accountability, and to include all stakeholders, 

and give voice to the Haitian people in the delivery of that assistance. We will also coordinate efforts to avoid duplicative investments. 

I’m glad the legislation that Chairman Kerry and Senator Corker 

proposed echoes this commitment. It demonstrates that the United 

States is committed to supporting and partnering with people in 

the Government of Haiti, as both President Obama and Secretary 

Clinton have said, not just in the months to come, but in the years 

to come. It focuses on long-term development goals that align with 

the needs of the Government of Haiti while not forsaking humanitarian relief efforts. 

I’m happy to say that much of what is called for in the proposed 

legislation is happening both on the ground and in Washington. 

Going forward, maximum flexibility is what is needed to address 

the ever-changing and uncertain situation on the ground. Our hope 

is that we can continue to work with you and your staffs to provide 

this flexibility as you develop a legislative response to the crisis. 

Learning what took place after the tsunami, the Government of 

Haiti is on its path to create a Haitian development authority. To 

give the Haitians time to stand up this authority, the Government 

of Haiti has empowered an interim structure. For 18 months, there 

will be the Interim Haitian Reconstruction Commission, whose 

mandate is to ensure that implementation of the Government of 

Haiti’s plan is coordinated, that projects are properly planned and 

sequenced, that efforts are effective, bottlenecks swiftly addressed, 

and that all involved adhere to the highest standards of transparency and accountability. 

We’re pleased that Congress recently passed the Help Act, which 

extends trade preferences to Haiti that will lead to job-creating 

investment there. This is key to Haiti’s economic development. 

14 

There’s much to be done in the coming months. President Preval 

has announced his intent to hold elections, originally scheduled for 

February, before the end of the year. The U.N., the OAS, and IFES 

have completed election assessments, and we’ve begun working 

with the Government of Haiti and our international partners in 

support of parliamentary and Presidential elections expected later 

in this year. 

As was the case in 2005, the U.N. and others will work on the 

logistics and security around the elections, registering citizens and 

making sure we include those that are displaced. 

Shortly after assuming office, Secretary Clinton called on the 

State Department and USAID to undertake a review of United 

States policy to Haiti. Through an interagency review process, consultations with the government, and fellow donors, we identified 

four key sectors for future investment—that will be agriculture, energy, security and rule of law, and health—in which the United 

States has comparative advantage in providing assistance. 

After the earthquake, we revisited that assessment with the Government of Haiti again. The Haitians strongly support deep investment in these key sectors; and in pursuing these investments, we 

will adhere to the following set of principles: United States assistance to Haiti will be deployed in an integrated plan, focusing on 

specific sectors. United States assistance will respond to the Government of Haiti’s priorities and build the Haitian Government’s 

capacity. United States policy and assistance to Haiti will be 

aligned around common development goals and harness the 

strengths of the entire United States Government through a coordinated approach. And United States assistance to Haiti will leverage and complement the resources of other donors and the private 

sector. And, finally, the U.S. assistance will be subject to rigorous 

monitoring and evaluation. We are confident that these investments will help Haiti realize a better tomorrow. 

I will try and wrap this up very quickly. 

Much has been said about the resilience of the Haitian people. 

Indeed, they are incredibly strong people, whose love of life, even 

over the past 4 months, has inspired so many of us. Together with 

the Government of Haiti and international partners, we can 

achieve lasting change and help the Haitian people realize sustained development and stability. Years from now, when people ask 

me where I was when ‘‘bagay la’’ happened, I will recount the story 

of those 35 seconds, but, more importantly, I will recount the many 

heroic efforts and common humanity that followed. 

Thank you very much, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Merten follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR KENNETH MERTEN, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO

THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am honored to join you here today. 

Haiti suffered a massive magnitude 7.0 earthquake on January 12, 2010, with an 

epicenter just southwest of the capital, Port-au-Prince. An estimated 2 million people lived within the zone of heavy to moderate damage. The earthquake was the 

worst in Haiti in the last 200 years. Thirty-five seconds changed the face of a nation 

that was already the poorest in our hemisphere. The quake left 230,000 dead, displaced more than 1.2 million, and according to the Post Disaster Needs Assessment 

led by the World Bank in cooperation with the Government of Haiti generated an 

estimated $11.5 billion in damages and reconstruction costs. Assisting Haiti in reVerDate Nov 24 2008 18:25 Dec 17, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\HEARING FILES\2010 ISSUE HEARINGS TO PREPARE FOR PRINTING\ISSUE HEARIN
15 

covery and rebuilding is a massive undertaking and requires a well-coordinated, 

well-funded, Government of Haiti-led effort. The outpouring of international support 

has been tremendous, but this is not only about numbers, it is about the Haitian 

people and those from around the world who have been united in partnering with 

them. 

On behalf of the Embassy staff, I would like to convey my gratitude to Congress, 

and especially this committee, for its continued concern for and unflagging support 

of Haiti, its people, and those of us on tours in the country. I have been involved 

with Haiti on and off for more than 20 years. This is my third tour. I have served 

as a Consular Officer, later as Chief of the Economic Section, and as Assistant to 

the Special Advisors on Haiti. I have seen first-hand the progress the nation has 

made, making it even more devastating to witness the destruction of the earthquake—physical, social, and economic. In my 23 years in the Foreign Service, I have 

never been prouder of the work I am doing and the people with whom I serve. In 

the face of tragedy—more than a third of us lost our homes, and all of us have had 

a family member, friend, or colleague die or suffer injury—we came together and 

worked to do all we could for those in need. 

Many Haitians do not refer to the earthquake by name. They call it ‘‘bagay la’’ 

meaning ‘‘the thing.’’ They ask each other where they were when ‘‘bagay-la’’ happened. I want to share with an example from Embassy personnel. 

Deputy Regional Security Officer Pete Kolshorn who lived on a ridgeline, immediately leapt through the door of his house and looked for his neighbors who were 

also Embassy staffers. Their house was gone. Looking over the ridge, and down 

about two stories, he saw an Embassy officer buried up to her waist, face covered 

with dirt and blood, calling for help. He then saw her husband moving in spasms 

to try to free himself. Beyond him, Kolshorn saw an arm protruding from the wreckage. Without a thought for his safety, he threw a hose over the cliff, scaled down 

sheer rock to reach the victims and with the assistance of one of the Embassy’s 

Local Guard Force Locally Employed Staff members, Renald Jean Belfort. All three 

were seriously injured—two with head wounds. With the help of neighbors, 

Kolshorn brought all three up the cliff where there were two doctors. One man needed immediate medical care. Carrying two stretchers at a time, then returning for 

the third, Kolshorn worked to get to the main road. This effort took 7 hours—having 

to trek through the most horrific of conditions. When he came upon a trapped child, 

Kolshorn put the stretchers down and with the help of a stranger fed the child. If 

someone had told me this story 5 months ago, I would have had difficulty believing 

it. Today it is a reality. 

The same night, Assistant Regional Security Officer Rob Little covered Port-auPrince on motorcycle visiting every American employee’s residence to check on them, 

particularly in cases in which we had not been able to contact them. He helped us 

determine that night the whereabouts of our employees and he did so in total darkness with streets thronged with homeless people and blocked in many cases by 

rocks, trees, houses, and worst of all bodies. 

These are just two stories of the heroic efforts that occurred in the hours and days 

following the earthquake. Our conference room became an emergency operating 

room; we evacuated 16,000 Americans back to the United States—including my wife 

and two daughters—one of the largest such evacuations since World War II; we delivered humanitarian aid, food, and water; and seldom slept more than 4 hours. 

Many of us slept under our desks, in the hallways or in tents. I slept on a cot in 

the Embassy for 3 weeks, because I could not get back to my house. 

Indeed, it was the funds granted the Haiti Mission by the Congress that allowed 

us to build the resilient U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince. Our Embassy, which was 

completed in June 2008, became a safe haven for so many in the aftermath of the 

quake—serving as nerve center, shelter, hospital, kitchen, and perhaps most importantly, a place where we could all come together and support each other. 

Our efforts would not have been possible let alone successful without the support 

of colleagues across the government and around the world. We had more volunteers 

than desks for them to sleep under; were in contact with the USAID and the 

Department of State here in Washington every minute of the day; they and countless other agencies supported us as we supported each other in the most selfless of 

ways. 

Today we remain committed to supporting the Government and people of Haiti 

as they set out to build back better. 

At my confirmation hearing last July, I stated that in the aftermath of the tropical storms and hurricanes that caused extensive damage from 2006 to 2008, Haiti 

simply did not have the resources to rebound from such set-backs on its own. That 

observation is even more true today. 

16 

We have much to be proud of—the U.S. Government’s responsiveness to date and 

the results that we have achieved working with the Government of Haiti and international partners have been great as Chris Milligan’s testimony states. Now is a 

period of transition—from the most critical humanitarian relief efforts to long-term 

development. 

The International Donors Conference Towards a New Future for Haiti that took 

place on March 31, 2010, sent a clear message: donors and the Government of Haiti 

are committed to working together to make the vision the Government presented 

for its country, reality. The conference raised $9.9 billion in pledges for Haiti’s reconstruction. On behalf of the United States, Secretary Clinton pledged $1.15 billion 

over 2 years to help Haiti lay the foundation for long-term sustainable development. 

In so doing, the United States, together with the Government of Haiti and other 

donors, committed to hold itself to the utmost levels of transparency and accountability; to include all stakeholders; give greater voice to the Haitian people in the 

delivery of our assistance; and to coordinate efforts and avoid duplicative investments. 

I am glad the legislation that Chairman Kerry and Senator Corker proposed 

echoes this commitment. It demonstrates that the United States is committed to 

supporting and partnering with the people and Government of Haiti, as both President Obama and Secretary Clinton have said, not just in the months to come, but 

in the years to come. It focuses on long-term development goals that align with the 

needs of the Government of Haiti, while not forsaking humanitarian relief efforts. 

I am happy to say that much of what is called for in the proposed legislation is happening both on the ground and in Washington. Going forward, maximum flexibility 

is what is needed to address the ever-changing and uncertain situation on the 

ground. Our hope is that we can continue to work with you and your staffs to provide this necessary flexibility as you develop a legislative response to the crisis. 

Learning from what took place after the Southeast Asian Tsunami, the Government of Haiti is on the path to create a Haitian Development Authority. To give 

the Government of Haiti time to stand up the Authority, the Government has empowered an interim structure. For 18 months there will be the Interim Haitian 

Reconstruction Commission, whose mandate is to ensure that implementation of the 

Government of Haiti’s plan is coordinated, projects are properly planned and 

sequenced, efforts are effective, bottlenecks are be swiftly addressed, and all involved adhere to the highest standards of transparency and accountability. 

We are also pleased that Congress recently passed the Haiti Economic Lift Program (HELP) Act, which extends trade preferences to Haiti that will lead to jobcreating investment there. 

There is much to be done in the coming months. President Preval has announced 

his intent to hold elections, originally scheduled for February, before the end of the 

year. The United Nations, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the 

International Foundation for Electoral Support (IFES) have completed election 

assessments. We have begun working with the Government of Haiti and our international partners in support of Parliamentary and Presidential elections expected 

later in 2010. As was the case in 2005, the U.N. through MINUSTAH, the OAS, 

and CARICOM will play vital roles in the logistics and security around the elections, registering of citizens—including those who are displaced—and monitoring 

the balloting. 

Shortly after assuming office, Secretary Clinton called on the State Department 

and USAID to undertake a review of U.S. policy on Haiti—to evaluate our existing 

programs and policies, assess the alignment of our efforts with the needs of the people and Government of Haiti, and determine how we can be most impactful. 

Through an interagency review process, consultations with the Government of Haiti, 

and fellow donors, we identified four key sectors for future U.S. investment—agriculture, energy, security/rule of law, and health in which the United States has comparative advantage in providing assistance. After the earthquake we revisited our 

assessment, again discussing with the Government of Haiti what its greatest needs 

were and what it wanted from the United States, and expanded the scope to accommodate new needs in governance and infrastructure. The Government of Haiti 

strongly supports deep investment in these key sectors and in pursuing these investments, we will adhere to the following set of principles: 

• U.S. assistance to Haiti will be deployed in an integrated plan, focusing on specific sectors and geographic regions of the country. 

• U.S. assistance to Haiti will respond to Government of Haiti priorities and build 

the Haitian Government’s capacity toward sustainable and economic growth. 

• U.S. policy and assistance to Haiti will be aligned around common development 

goals and harness the strengths of the entire U.S. Government through a coordinated approach. 

17 

• U.S. assistance to Haiti will leverage and complement the resources of other 

donors and the private sector. 

• U.S. assistance to Haiti will be subject to rigorous monitoring and evaluation. 

We are confident that these investments will help Haiti realize a better tomorrow. 

Over the course of the past 4 months, I have witnessed the worst human suffering 

and the best in human compassion and support. Tragically the Embassy lost several 

members who continue to be missed and in memory of whom we remain committed 

to our efforts on the ground. Among the deceased are: Victoria DeLong, the Cultural 

Affairs Officer at the Embassy who had worked to build bridges of understanding 

and respect. The wife and young children of Andrew Wyllie, a decorated State Department officer working with the United Nations. And six locally employed staff: 

Jean-Daniel LaFontant, Olriche Jean, Jacques Josue Desamours, Laica Casseus, 

Joseph Fontal, and Racan Domond. 

Much has been said about the resilience of the Haitian people. Indeed, they are 

incredibly strong people whose love of life, even over the past 4 months, has inspired 

so many of us. Together with the Government of Haiti and international partners 

we can achieve lasting change and help the Haitian people realize sustained development and stability. Years from now when people ask where I was when ‘‘bagay 

la’’ happened, I will recount the story of those 35 seconds, but more importantly I 

will recount the many heroic efforts and common humanity that followed. 

Senator CASEY. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for your statement 

and your work on this, and the personal connection you bring to 

this. We’re grateful for that, and especially at a hearing; we often 

don’t have a personal witness in the ways that you’ve described. 

And I wanted to start with the—one of the fundamental concerns 

that we have in the near term—I’ll start with Mr. Milligan, if you 

don’t mind, with regard to the hurricane. Can you give us a sense 

of what USAID is doing to prepare for the hurricane season? 

Mr. MILLIGAN. Thank you. That’s an excellent question. And it 

is an activity—it’s a concern that we are continuing to address. 

We have made progress in preparing for the hurricane season, 

but we still are not there yet; we are still preparing. We are consulting with our international partners on their plans, and coordinating with them. For example, we’re aware of the plans of the 

World Food Programme to preposition supplies in 15 to 20 places 

around the country, in preparation. We have worked with the 

Department of Defense, which has completed assessments of hurricane shelters. We’re reviewing those assessments and see what 

needs to be done. And we’re coordinating with the Government of 

Haiti on its own hurricane preparation plan so we know how to be 

most supportive as part of an international community on that. 

We are ensuring that other USG assets are prepositioned in response. We’re aware of DOD’s plans to have emergency response 

capability within a matter of 24 to 48 hours. 

So, this is the current status of our preparation, and is a top priority for us. 

Senator CASEY. Let me ask you—well, what’s the biggest challenge, in terms of the preparation? One, do you have enough resources? That’s one question. Are there enough resources that you 

can bring to bear? But, two, what’s your most difficult challenge in 

preparing? Is it infrastructure or is it the fact that the Haitian 

Government may not have the capacity to do what they need to do 

to prepare adequately? What’s your—I know you’re still in the 

midst of developing it, but what’s the biggest challenge you face? 

And do you have the resources you need? 

Mr. MILLIGAN. One of our major challenges is assessing the impact of the earthquake on the shelters and the prevention that we 

18 

had in place already. As you know, there is an annual earthquake—hurricane season in Haiti, and the government prepares, 

on an annual basis, in coordination with international partners. 

What we are currently assessing is the impact of the earthquake 

on the preexisting capabilities. And we’re getting that information, 

and it’s coming in, and we’re coordinating it with the government. 

It’s difficult for me to judge, at this point, on additional resource 

requirements, but I’m not aware of any, at this time. 

Senator CASEY. And if—and then I’ll move to the Ambassador— 

but, I think it would help the committee to be able to have, maybe 

in written form, an outline of the hurricane preparation. 

Mr. MILLIGAN. Happy to provide that. 

Senator CASEY. That would amplify the record. And I want to 

stay within my time, since I was imposing that on others. 

Mr. Ambassador, one of the real concerns that I think a lot of 

people have is—we know how events like this are covered; there’s 

a lot of coverage at the beginning, that begins to diminish, and I’m 

not sure the American people have a real sense of what’s happened, here, what kind of aid we’ve provided, what the nature of 

that is, but also, and right now, I think, more importantly, what’s 

going to happen, going forward. When they hear numbers like $15 

billion being committed, and they hear about conferences, that’s 

very positive, but I think what most people out there are concerned 

about is, Where are we with the deployment of those dollars? And, 

in particular, if you can highlight, or Mr. Milligan can, What’s the 

current state of affairs as it relates to something as fundamental 

as just basic health care on the ground? If you can walk through 

that. I know we only have about 3 minutes, and I’ll move to Senator Corker, and I can come back to it. But, as best you can in a 

short time. 

Ambassador MERTEN. OK, very briefly, thank you. 

I think one of the things that we look forward to, to working with 

our Haitian and international partners on, is, as the Haitians 

stand up the IHRC, this will monitor and provide transparency to 

the public and to those who are interested in the actual disbursement of moneys, not only that the United States has contributed, 

but others. In fact, the Web site is already up and running, and 

we can provide that to you separately, if members of the committee 

and staff are interested. I think this is a major step forward, which 

will, in effect, sort of hold people’s feet to the fire, to allow it to 

be public, you know, who has pledged what, and where they are, 

in terms of those pledges. 

You know, I think we will be working very closely on that committee to ensure that things move quickly, that the reconstruction 

process moves as quickly as, certainly, we want it to do. I think— 

I know that the Haitians—I know President Preval has told me 

that he is eager to see things develop as quickly as possible. So, 

I think this will be a useful tool for us to: a, monitor; but, b, sort 

of push through the speed with which this happens. 

Senator CASEY. In the 2 minutes that I have in my question period, can either of you provide an overview or a quick assessment 

just on health care delivery on the ground? 

Mr. MILLIGAN. Senator, there has been no significant widespread 

infectious disease outbreak in Haiti, despite the severity of the 

19 

earthquake, displacement of people, and the initial disruptions of 

the health care system. The rapid response within the health sector, which included efforts in water and sanitation, national vaccination campaigns, national surveillance, and vector-borne disease 

control have likely contributed to this. 

We have had two isolated cases of diphtheria, including a young 

man who passed away after receiving treatment. Despite this 

tragic outcome, diphtheria is endemic to Haiti, and these two cases 

are not indicative of an epidemic. There is sufficient antitoxin incountry to treat 25 to 100 cases, and CDC is ready to assist with 

additional doses, if necessary. 

But, Senator, as you know, the status of the health care system 

in Haiti was challenged before the earthquake, one of our key requests in the supplemental is health care funding, because we need 

to help rebuild the public health care infrastructure. Traditionally, 

the funding for health care bypassed the government and is not 

sustainable. We need to help rebuild the public health care system. 

We also need to continue to provide health care services for the displaced persons. And through our supplemental, we’re requesting 

funds for long-term rehabilitations for victims of the earthquake. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you. I’m out of time. 

Senator Corker. 

Senator CORKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for 

your testimony. 

I think—you look at the many efforts that Americans have been 

involved in, in Haiti for years—I mean, at the end of the day, just 

to call it like it is, people, generally speaking, try to figure out a 

way to work around the government to accomplish things there, because they care about the people. I have generally good feelings, 

personally, about President Preval, and—I think he’s a nice man. 

At the end of the day, though, the government has been incredibly 

ineffective, even in good times, in administering the country in 

such a way that the Haitian people can flourish. 

So, right now, in the middle of this tragedy that’s occurred, who’s 

in charge down there, and who—you know, like, who is the person 

that is in charge, ultimately—I know there’s all kinds of organizations involved—the U.N., USAID, State—who’s in charge? You 

know, if—I know it cannot be the President, so who is in charge 

of what’s happening in Haiti? 

Ambassador MERTEN. I would disagree with you and say that 

President Preval is in charge. He is the leader of the Haitian Government. He’s democratically elected. He is making decisions. I will 

say—— 

Senator CORKER. He’s making reconstruction decisions and 

he’s—— 

Ambassador MERTEN. He will become—— 

Senator CORKER [continuing]. Deciding where the resources go? 

Ambassador MERTEN. His Prime Minister, Prime Minister 

Bellerive, will be chairing the IHRC with former President Bill 

Clinton. And I think that that the Commission will—our belief is 

that that will prove effective in expediting the decisionmaking process and moving things forward with speed, that I think we both 

agree is—— 

20 

Senator CORKER. Well, today if somebody had a major issue they 

wanted dealt with, they’d call—we’d pick up the phone and call 

President Preval, and he would make that decision, on the spot. 

Interesting. 

Ambassador MERTEN. I mean, I—he is still the democratically 

elected President—— 

Senator CORKER. I understand that—— 

Ambassador MERTEN [continuing]. Of the country. He has the 

authority, and, you know, we have found him to be responsive to 

our concerns and to our requests. You know, we don’t always find 

ourselves in agreement with him, obviously, but, in broad terms, he 

has been responsive to us. 

I think it’s worth recalling that his government—and I would 

completely agree with you—was inefficient, perhaps we should say, 

at—before the earthquake. I think the Haitians—most Haitians, 

speaking honestly with you, would agree with that. Our strategy 

is to work with the Haitian government and build them up so that 

they, over time, have increased capacity, so don’t have problems, in 

terms of getting decisions out of them. And so, they do have the 

experience—— 

Senator CORKER. OK, so there’s a need to—and I’m not—look, I 

mean,—and I appreciate so much what you guys are saying, and 

I appreciate what you do—but we’re going, in the process of all this 

need, where 3 million people are affected and people don’t have 

homes, as Senator Casey has mentioned, hurricane season is coming, there’s all kind of health care needs—today, the man that’s on 

the ground and making things happen, the sheriff, if you will, is 

President Preval. Is that what you’re telling me? 

Ambassador MERTEN. Again, he is the leader of the country, he 

has got a lot of support from the international community, me, you 

know, the American Development Bank, Canada, EU, France. We 

meet with him regularly. You know, we work with the Haitian 

Government, not just President Preval, the Prime Minister, who is 

also a decisionmaker in the process. Again, they are doing their job 

and making their decisions, as needed. 

Senator CORKER. And who’s our day-to-day leader down there, as 

far as coordinating all of the reconstruction efforts and other types 

of activities? 

Ambassador MERTEN. Well, we have our AID mission director. 

We also have Chris, who’s down there. We participate in the U.N. 

coordination system, called the ‘‘cluster system,’’ which is broken 

down into various substantive areas, to coordinate our efforts. I 

think that works reasonably well. I don’t know if Chris has anything he wants to add to that, or not. 

Senator CORKER. Term ‘‘cluster’’ creates a little bit of a concern, 

I might add. 

So, who’s developing—— 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CORKER [continuing]. Who’s developing, if you will, the— 

I know that Senator Bingaman and I, when I first got here, began 

looking at some of the things that were being done by various communities to help there be a vision in Haiti, to help move it along. 

And, you know, it was, some ways, like pushing rope, as you can 

imagine. And I think when you talk about building up the governVerDate Nov 24 2008 18:25 Dec 17, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 S:\HEARING FILES\2010 ISSUE HEARINGS TO PREPARE FOR PRINTING\ISSUE HEARIN
21 

ment there, that some degree of that still exists. So, who’s developing the—if you will, the—sort of, the vision of what Haiti’s going 

to be over time? That’s almost a word bigger than necessary today, 

with all the immediate needs, but who’s doing that? 

Ambassador MERTEN. Well, again, our strategy is a country-led 

strategy. The Haitians have certainly, in the post-earthquake 

period, through the needs assessment, dictated what they believe 

is their priorities and what they view is the roadmap ahead. Again, 

we work with them, and with our international partners, to coordinate our efforts to help them get there. They clearly don’t have the 

ability to do it on their own. And this is, of course, where we come 

in. I hate to keep going back to the same thing, but our view is 

that the IHRC will be a very useful tool in coordinating this effort, 

focusing the Haitians and our partners on the needs as discussed 

earlier in that document, and keeping us—keeping our eye ahead 

on that roadmap. 

Senator CORKER. So, our role—explain to me and those on the 

committee—so, if the President there is in charge, and the international community is working together to make things happen on 

the ground, what is our role in that, exactly? I mean, are we the 

de facto moral leaders there? Are we just one of a group of people? 

I mean, be realistic about what our role is there. And I would expect that it’s a very strong role, and certainly, I know, individuals 

like you are very committed, but tell us the reality of what our role 

is in relation to everyone else. 

Ambassador MERTEN. I’d like to—I would agree with you, we 

have a very strong role in Haiti. We are close, we have deep relationships with Haiti. I think our relationships with—at all levels 

of the Haitian Government are good. I think we do play a very key 

role. At the end of the day, we’re talking about a sovereign country, 

however, which has a democratically elected President with whom 

we deal. You know, our goal is to work with them with a sense of 

partnership, to support them where they need it. And, you know, 

they have asked us, on various occasions, for help, and we—as 

you’ve seen over the past 4 months, we’ve been providing it. 

I think that partnership respect and responsibility would characterize, in three words, I guess, our relationship with the Government of Haiti. 

Senator CORKER. So, my time is up, and I think you get the gist 

of my concerns. Look, so there’s this tension, and millions of people 

that Americans have identified with and care about. And so, you 

have this tension of people wanting to ensure that they have those 

needs that they have, that are huge, that are met. And, at the 

same time, we have an incredibly ineffective government, and an 

international community that is working together to get things 

done. And so, I know that many of us on the committee have said, 

‘‘You know, should we do something?’’—because we care about the 

people there more than we care about other government, ‘‘Should 

we do something more draconian?’’ And I know that it is a sovereign country, kinda-sorta. It wouldn’t exist without the international community. And I understand we have to have respect for 

that. But, I just think there’s a tension there, and I don’t think 

we’ve fully addressed that. I think we’re, you know, working 

around that issue. And, in the interim, I think a lot of people are 

22 

suffering as we try to pay tribute to a government that has been 

very ineffective. And I’m not saying any of us could have been any 

better, with the infrastructure there. But, I hope that we will— 

I hope we will not play games with that. I think we all care about 

folks there. And I guess I’ll stop, but I get the sense we kind of are. 

I get the sense that we’re not addressing the reality of the situation 

on the ground, because we want to allow a sovereign government 

to exist, and respect that, as we do—we respect the rule of law, we 

respect democracies—but, at the same time, as we respect that, it’s 

my sense a lot of people are suffering. I don’t know what the answer is, but guys like you that are on the ground will, hopefully, 

help us with that. 

Ambassador MERTEN. Senator, I completely understand your concerns, and I share many of them, myself. You know, you have my 

commitment that we will do our very best to make sure we reach 

out and do the best we can for those people that are suffering, and 

that we will press the Government of Haiti to make the decisions 

that are necessary to make sure that can happen. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you, Senator Corker. 

Senator Gillibrand. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this 

hearing. 

Thank you very much for being here to talk to us about your 

work in Haiti. 

I was able to travel down to Haiti with Senator Landrieu earlier 

this year, right around Eastertime, and I got to meet with you, 

Ambassador. And thank you for all your hard work. 

Obviously, we have extraordinary challenges in Haiti. And one of 

the areas of my gravest concern are the children of Haiti. One of 

the concerns that I have is the education level, that at least half 

of the children in Haiti are not being educated, and 80 percent of 

them that are, are paying for school in a community that has so 

little money available to provide for their families. Haiti has a 52- 

percent illiteracy rate, and these are some of the grave challenges. 

Now, I understand that the United States is not heading up the 

education pillar, and I understand the need for donor coordination, 

but I’d like to hear from you what role you think we can play in 

the development of a quality public education. 

Ambassador MERTEN. Senator, thank you for your question. 

When I talk to Haitians, education is one of their top priorities. 

And immediately following the earthquake, we contributed $6.2 

million for temporary schools, and we are currently refurbishing 

600 schools in Haiti. 

We will continue to work, through our bilateral USAID program, 

to improve the quality of education. But, as you know, we are part 

of a broader international effort, and our programs can’t be a mile 

wide and an inch deep. So, we are working with other donors who 

are taking a lead in the education sector. We’re aware, for example, 

that the IADB is proposing to proceed with a $2 billion program 

in education, and we’re coordinating with them on that. We also coordinate with the French and the Canadians in this sector, because 

they can bring resources to bear, as well. 

We work well with UNICEF. UNICEF has just completed an 

assessment of 133 schools that require rubble removal so that 

23 

schools will open. And so, we’re coordinating to ensure that 

UNICEF is getting the resources it needs to the broader international community, and MINUSTAH and others, to have that rubble removed. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Since we are charged with the pillar on infrastructure, can we use that charge to go in and really create— 

remove the rubble, for example, and create the infrastructure for 

the school system? Because one of the other concerns—you know, 

we also are addressing health—we can use these schools as the 

focal point for community services, so when we get the children 

into the schools, we can use it as a delivery mechanism for vaccinations, for health care, for aid, for food, anything that families need 

to receive. If they can go to their local school to receive that support and assistance and health care, it would be a very good way 

to create a hub system that can be very effective that we could support through our responsibilities on infrastructure and health. 

Mr. MILLIGAN. Yes. Rubble removal is one of our top priorities 

in moving forward. As you know, there is enough rubble to fill five 

Louisiana Super Domes, and it’s an enormous task. We’re working 

with the Government of Haiti and the international donors to 

prioritize which areas of rubble need to be removed first, and 

prioritize residential areas and schools, moving forward. And, in 

fact, that was the good work of UNICEF. And we want to support 

rubble removal in these priority areas, because one of the international community’s goals is to ensure that schools do reopen in 

September. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. I’d also like to address the issue of orphans. 

You know, we had reports that there were hundreds of thousands 

of orphans before the earthquake. We documented 50,000 children 

in orphanages, placed in orphanages. Obviously, that number is 

greatly expanded, and there are many children who do not have 

parents or relatives that are able to keep them at home in a family 

environment. And all statistics and all studies show that it’s far 

better for children to be raised in a family environment, as opposed 

to an institutional environment. What is the United States policy 

with regard to the orphanages in Haiti and what we can do for the 

children who are orphaned in Haiti today? 

Ambassador MERTEN. Just to look back on what we’ve done since 

the earthquake, first, to respond to that, we—I was personally involved with expediting the release of—and travel of—1,000—just 

shy of 1,000 orphans from Haiti prior to the earthquake in these 

last 4 months. That is in comparison to roughly 300 per year, who 

we typically help come to the United States. It is, as you understand, a sensitive issue, both here and in Haiti. Our concern, obviously, is to protect the adoptive parents, but also protect the children, and to make sure that there are legitimate and, indeed, true 

orphans that are coming here. 

There is legislation in Haiti which is—which has been passed by 

the lower House of Congress. It still needs Senate approval. Unfortunately, we do not have a seated Senate right now. We probably 

will early in the next year. And you have our commitment that we 

will work with the Senate to push for their passage of that bill. 

Once that bill is passed, it contains certain provisions, at least in 

24 

its current form, that would facilitate and expedite the adoption 

process. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Within—I mean, I want to address the 

processes and protections within Haiti—— 

Ambassador MERTEN. Right. 

Senator GILLIBRAND [continuing]. For—you know, for adoptions 

within Haiti. Foster care—is there any discussion of increasing foster care or guardianship programs in Haiti? And then, separately, 

after we discuss that, I’d like to discuss international adoptions. 

But, I’d like to—— 

Mr. MILLIGAN. OK. Yes. 

Senator GILLIBRAND [continuing]. At least address separately, 

What does the Haitian Government intend to do? Is there any 

movement toward improving the quality of care that we can offer 

children through families, if possible, in Haiti? 

Mr. MILLIGAN. Senator, the status of orphans and vulnerable 

children is a major concern for us, particularly given the disaster. 

USAID immediately provided—I’m sorry—the U.S. Government 

immediately provided about $10 million to support orphans and 

vulnerable children. 

The Agency for International Development, through its Office of 

Foreign Disaster Assistance, launched programs on emergency 

child protection, helping to register vulnerable children, and trace 

them, providing safe spaces for children, support for caregivers, 

and activities to reduce the potential of trafficking in persons. 

We’ve also supported public education programs and alert systems and emergency phone numbers. 

I understand the Department of State, G–TIP, has immediately 

launched programs to reduce the possibility of trafficking in persons, as well, and the Department of State’s Bureau of PRM is considering more support to UNICEF in order to address trafficking 

in persons. 

We do have, as part of our supplemental request, $11.5 million 

to look at the longer term issues, and they are consistent with your 

priorities, to look at more community-based relationships, and supporting that capability within Haiti. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you, Senator Gillibrand. 

Senator Shaheen. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for 

holding the hearing today. 

I apologize if you’ve already covered some of this ground in the 

time that I was not here, but, in responding to the earthquake, the 

Department of Defense sent in a number of resources. Are those resources now being transferred to USAID and State, or what’s happening with those? And how well is—if they are being transferred, 

how well is that transfer proceeding? 

Mr. MILLIGAN. Perhaps I could begin on this one. 

First of all, our military colleagues did an outstanding job in 

Haiti. And I have worked in—20 years in development and 2 years 

in Iraq. We had excellent coordination in Iraq, but I have never 

seen the level of civilian/military cooperation as I have seen—— 

Senator SHAHEEN. Great. 

25 

Mr. MILLIGAN [continuing]. In Haiti. And not only with their U.S. 

Government counterparts, but with the NGO community and international organizations. They were essential for the initial successes 

of the humanitarian assistance effort. 

We coordinate, with the Department of Defense, any of their excess property. And so, we have facilitated delivery of excess property to the Government of Haiti and also to local NGOs. It’s a very 

smooth process, and it’s one that we’re happy to do, because it provides more assistance to those who need it most. 

We also have been coordinating with the Department of Defense 

on the location of their ongoing bilateral programs in Gonaives and 

other parts of the country, so there’s a coordination between the development people, ourselves, and the Department of Defense on 

how best to use these assets, and where to place them. And again, 

I have to emphasize, it has been exceptional, the level of coordination out there. 

Senator SHAHEEN. That’s great. And so, you said you’re coordinating how best to use the assets. Is DOD still there now with 

those resources, or has that transfer been accomplished? 

Mr. MILLIGAN. DOD has a Joint Task Force Haiti that deployed 

immediately following the earthquake. It will be transitioning, on 

June 1, to a very robust DOD program that’s focusing on the 

middle-term priorities, such as reconstruction of some schools, and 

preparations for the hurricanes, and those activities. So, again, the 

Joint Task Force now, I believe, is about 800 individuals, standing 

down on June 1. But, in the meantime, the other DOD activities 

have been ramping up. I suspect they will have about 500 people 

on the ground in Haiti in a matter of a few weeks. 

Ambassador MERTEN. If I could just add to that. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Sure. 

Ambassador MERTEN. They will have around 500 members, I believe, of the Louisiana National Guard up in Gonaives, which is the 

region of the country most susceptible to flooding and damage from 

hurricanes. They will also be conducting a very robust series of 

what they call ‘‘medical readiness exercises,’’ not just in the earthquake area, but around the country, which will provide medical 

care to people not typically touched by the established medical system, particularly in rural areas, which—where people’s medical 

care is, understandably, you know, the worst in the country. So, 

that will be ongoing for the coming months. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Great. At the March 31 International Donors 

Conference, the Haitian Government came in with a 10-year recovery plan, as I understand, and the plan cost $111⁄2 billion, and the 

Haitian administration sought about $4 billion for first 18 months. 

And I think everybody should be proud of the response from the 

international community. The donors pledged nearly $10 billion, 

and $5.4 billion for the first 18 months. Is this aid coming in? Is 

there evidence that this is coming in? And how is this getting channeled? Is it going through the infrastructure that was developed in 

response to the earthquake? And who’s in charge of executing the 

funds? And how is the Haitian Government involved? 

So, I’ve given you about four questions there, but—— 

Mr. MILLIGAN. Well, I applaud the Government of Haiti’s efforts 

to lead a successful Donors Conference, and we’re very glad that 

26 

the pledges were made. And we will be pressing upon donors to 

honor their pledges. 

Some of the ways forward include the development of a 

Multidonor Trust Fund. These have been very effective in other 

cases. We have been negotiating—if you were—consulting, if you 

will—with international partners and the World Bank. The World 

Bank will chair the Multidonor Trust Fund. We have agreement on 

one standard agreement that all donors will use so that we have 

a unity of effort with the trust fund. 

Donors will have to make a pledge of a significant amount in 

order to be voting members on that trust fund. At the same time, 

we are very supportive of the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission that was established by decree recently. This will play a 

very effective role in, not only laying out strategic vision that is 

government-led, but also in assuring accountable and transparent 

use of funding, and providing more information to the people of 

Haiti about where the funds are going, and why they’re going 

there. 

At the same time, it’ll avoid duplication of effort among donors. 

So, this is something that, from a development point of view, we 

strongly support. 

Senator SHAHEEN. So, is the Donors Trust Fund—has everyone 

agreed to set that up already, or do we—are we still waiting for 

agreement from certain partners? 

Mr. MILLIGAN. The—we have broad agreement on the establishment of a Multidonors Trust Fund. And I understand that the Brazilians have already made a financial commitment to that trust 

fund. I believe that it’s $55 million, but I could clarify that, for the 

record. 

Senator SHAHEEN. So, there has been agreement from the donor 

community to do this, and everybody’s signed on, and it’s going forward? 

Mr. MILLIGAN. Yes. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Good. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you, Senator Shaheen. 

I know we’re coming to the end of the panel—we want to be cognizant of the time—but, I wanted to go back, Mr. Milligan, to a 

question about the hurricane season. What can you tell us about 

the international community’s efforts to have a storm tracking system put in place, or a better system that’s been in place to date? 

Is there any information you can provide on that? 

Mr. MILLIGAN. Sir, I’d like to provide you with a fuller explanation of that, but I’d like to provide a response for the record, if 

you will. I don’t have that information available now. 

Senator CASEY. OK. I think that’s critically important. When we 

see the devastating effect of the hurricanes—that the hurricane 

season can have, I think it’s important that we know that. And I’d 

appreciate a prompt response to that. 

I guess, I wanted to come back to the question of health care delivery on the ground, and also food security. And again, on both of 

these, there may be more information to provide for the record. 

But, either of—either of you, Mr. Milligan or the Ambassador— 

27 

what can you tell us about those two issues? Maybe starting with 

food security. What’s the current state of affairs? 

Mr. MILLIGAN. With respect to food security, there has been no 

increase in malnutrition rates following the earthquake, largely, in 

part, due to the enormous emergency food distribution, feeding 3.5 

million people. But, we know that there is a link between the emergency food and the sustainability of the agricultural sector. In 

order to be prepared to address that important transition issue, we 

mobilized a team of experts from Worldwide USAID to come and 

examine how best to transition from an emergency response in the 

food sector, to sustain agricultural programs. 

What we have done in the meantime is that we worked hard to 

provide a lot of inputs to farmers, ahead of the rainy season, to ensure a productive harvest. We didn’t want the Haitian people to 

lose a harvest because of the earthquake. We—as you know, the 

domestic production of food is essential to food security. We, as an 

agency—USAID—have contributed more than $110 million in food 

assistance following the earthquake. And agriculture is one our 

four deep investments that we propose to follow in the supplemental. And we propose to do it in three ways. First, one, jumpstarting the rural economy by ensuring that farmers have the right 

inputs, that they have—prepared irrigation canals, and that they 

can move forward with the planting and harvesting. 

Second, we want to link the farmer more into the marketplace 

to ensure that he or she gets the benefits of their products by looking at the value chain, providing post-harvest facilities that will ensure that their crops do get to market, and also looking holistically—for example, the road system, how it fits in, so that we 

have a comprehensive approach to agriculture. 

And, finally, our approach will emphasize the capacity of the agricultural sector, looking where research would be helpful and how 

we can build the capacity for research, the capacity for innovation, 

and the capacity for the Haitians to carry this forward. 

Senator CASEY. Mr. Ambassador, a number of us have raised 

questions about—Senator Corker asked you a number of questions 

about the Haitian Government and their ability to provide, not just 

leadership, but results for the people in this terribly difficult period 

in their history. 

I guess—what can you tell us about, or what’s your—what’s your 

sense of, or—and in addition to, what’s your vision for—this—the 

ability of this government to improve day-to-day governance in the 

delivery of services in conjunction with, and simultaneously with, 

the reconstruction efforts? It’s a—both are difficult, but what’s your 

sense of the—of both governance and reconstruction, going forward? Being able to happen simultaneously? 

Ambassador MERTEN. I think it can happen, and I—but, I certainly don’t want to overpromise. I mean, I think it’s going to be 

a long-term effort that we need to work at, in a sustained way, in 

working with the Haitian Government and developing strategies 

which can bolster their capacity to function as a government, to 

provide the services, to respond to the needs of the people who 

elected them. And this is not something that’s going to happen 

overnight. But, our view is, over the past 20 years of working 

around the Haitian Government, and viewing them, in many cases, 

28 

correctly, as an obstacle, I think we’ve realized that we need to sort 

of engage with the government to make sure that they have the capacity to provide the services that, in many cases, are being provided by some NGOs or by international donors. And our strategy 

is to work with our colleagues and with the Haitian Government 

to allow them to get to a point where they can do that. It’s not 

going to happen overnight, however. 

Senator CASEY. I’ll wrap up my time. I’d just say, by way of summary, we—by my count, the Congress has taken four big actions, 

at least: debt cancellation, the economic lift program; No. 3, the 

$2.8 billion in the supplemental; and also, Senator Kerry and Senator Corker’s bill, the Empowerment Assistance and Renewal Act. 

That’s wonderful. We’re happy about that. But, you need to keep 

telling us what we’ve got to do to be more effective here. I hope 

you’re not ever reluctant to do that. Because hearings are great, 

and focus and attention is great, but it’s going to be, in the end, 

action and results that we can measure. We can go to the American 

people and say, ‘‘We passed this bill, we took this action, and here’s 

the result.’’ We—there’s just not enough of that right now, not only 

on this terribly difficult problem, but on a lot of things. 

I know that—Senator Corker—and I’m going go to Senator Kaufman, as well. 

Senator CORKER. Yes, I know we have another panel of witnesses, and we know how to get you guys on the phone. We thank 

you for your service. And out of respect for the next panel, I’m not 

going to ask any more questions. But, thank you. 

Senator CASEY. Senator Kaufman. 

Senator KAUFMAN. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I—and most of the questions I was going to ask have been 

asked. But, Mr. Milligan, I’d want to kind of zero in for just a few 

minutes on clean water. What’s the situation in Haiti with clean 

water? 

Mr. MILLIGAN. I’m sorry, sir? 

Senator KAUFMAN. Clean water. Providing water for the folks in 

Haiti. 

Mr. MILLIGAN. Oh, sure, yes. During the emergency response, 

clean water has been a key focus for us, because—not only because 

it’s necessary to sustain life, but also it’s key to sanitation. 

The—during the initial response efforts, we have seen about a 

50-percent increase in the production of clean water. We mobilized 

a chlorination system quickly that enabled increased access to 

clean water. So, a greater number of Haitians have access to this 

clean water than before the earthquake. 

One of the things that we’re aware of is, as we transition, we 

have to ensure the sustainability and the viability of the water providers. And so, as of last Sunday, water is no longer subsidized outside of the IDP settlements. Inside the IDP settlements, water is 

still arriving via tanker truck to bladders, because that’s necessary 

to maintain sanitation levels in—— 

Senator KAUFMAN. How—what’s the big problem, do you think, 

going forward? Is it money or is it technology or—— 

Mr. MILLIGAN. With water, sir? 

Senator KAUFMAN. Yes. 

29 

Mr. MILLIGAN. It’s—I think that there are several things. It’s 

capacity. We have had—there was—prior to the earthquake, there 

was a reorganization of the water sector. I think the NEPA, which 

is the provider of water, is doing, actually, an outstanding job, 

given the challenges, because they’re responsible for the entire 

water and sanitation sector. They’ve done a very good job. We 

need—they need continued capacity support and building. There’s 

the basic question of overall water infrastructure. As you know, 

prior to the earthquake, there are very few people who were part 

of that network. And so, continued work on that. 

One of the things we want to do is to—through the use of supplemental funds—is to ensure a focus outside of Port-au-Prince, in 

growth polls, to target the capacity of local government so local 

government can plan better and how to provide services. And I’m 

sure that one of the services they’re going to want to plan better 

on is provision of water. 

Senator KAUFMAN. Great. I want to know—anything we can do 

to help on this as we go forward, please, let us know. 

Mr. MILLIGAN. OK. Will do. 

Senator KAUFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you, Senator Kaufman. 

Mr. Milligan, we want to thank you for your testimony. Mr. Ambassador, for your testimony. We’ll thank you in advance for the 

written testimony you’ll submit. And we’re grateful for your service 

to the country and the work you’ve done in Haiti already. Thank 

you very much. 

We’ll move to our second panel. It’s—this is, as well, an esteemed 

panel of nongovernment witnesses. 

Our first witness is the Honorable Andrew Natsios, distinguished 

professor at Georgetown University’s Foreign Service—School of 

Foreign Service, and a former USAID Administrator. Our second 

panelist is Sean Penn, the founder of J/P Haiti Relief. That organization located in San Francisco. And then, finally, Mark Schneider, 

senior vice president, International Crisis Group, Washington, DC. 

And I’d like to thank each of our witnesses again for being here, 

for providing not only your testimony, but, in all cases, your work 

literally on the ground in Haiti and your commitment to getting 

the strategy right, in terms of what we do, going forward. 

I’d ask the witnesses, because your testimony will be submitted 

for the record, to try to keep your testimony within that 5-to-7 time 

range, if that’s at all possible. 

We’ll start from the right of the table, going right to left. Mr. 

Natsios, we’ll begin with your testimony. And the floor is yours. 

Thank you very much. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ANDREW S. NATSIOS, DISTINGUISHED 

PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE, GEORGETOWN 

UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, DC 

Ambassador NATSIOS. Thank you very much, Senator. I want to 

thank the committee for inviting me to speak today. 

I would, first, like to compliment the United Nations agencies, 

particularly UNICEF, the World Food Programme, UNDP, and 

United Nations Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance, the NGO community, USAID, the U.S. military, and the 

30 

State Department—for an excellent job in a very difficult circumstance. There are two things that led to a very difficult response; first, that Haiti was a failed state prior to the earthquake. 

Typically, as in Indonesia, for example, during the Aceh earthquake we had a highly functional national government that helped 

us with what we had to do, that could make decisions and that was 

competent in getting lots of things done. That was not the case before this earthquake in Haiti. Second, this natural disaster also 

happened in the capital city, where all the NGOs, the U.N., and 

all the government ministries were located, and there was a massive loss of life among the people who would normally manage the 

response. So, Haiti is very atypical. There are 62 disasters a year 

that USAID responds to through its disaster response mechanism. 

You hear about one or two, because they make it onto the news. 

The rest of them, you don’t ever hear about, because they’re actually handled so well, in terms of the nature and content of our response, through both Democratic and Republican administrations. 

So, I’m very proud of the agency’s work and of its disaster response 

staff. I ran that office, 20 years ago, under President George H.W. 

Bush, as my first job in international work. 

But, I want to talk a little bit about, not the relief response—if 

you ask questions, I’d be glad to discuss this topic—but more about 

the condition of the Haitian Government because I think the worst 

thing we can do is be nice about this issue and apply a Disney 

World assessment to what we’re dealing with. 

We are dealing with one of the worst-governed countries in the 

world, and clearly one of the worst-governed countries in Latin 

America. There was an earthquake in Chile that was comparable 

to that of Haiti; 500 people died in Chile while 230,000 people died 

in Haiti. What’s the difference? The difference is that the Chilean, 

along with the Costa Rican, Government are the two best-run 

Latin American governments. And therefore, if you have an earthquake in a country that’s highly functional, with a strong government presence, you can help them do their work; you don’t do it 

for them. 

For the last 30 or 40 years, we have basically been administering 

public services in Haiti, through NGOs, through contractors, 

through the U.N. agencies, because the Haitian state can’t do it 

itself. Eighty-five percent of the children in school in Haiti are in 

private schools; only 15 percent are in public schools because the 

the Ministry of Education is so dysfunctional. 

A World Bank study examining Haitian bureaucracy was conducted about 5 or 10 years ago, and it showed that 30 percent of 

the people working in the bureaucracy are phantom employees; 

they don’t exist. They get paid, they’re on the payroll, but they 

don’t report for work, ever, and most of them don’t even exist. In 

one ministry of 10,000 workers, 50 percent of the staff were phantom employees. 

Some advocacy groups have been in favor of using money for 

budget support to support this system, which I think is a terrible 

idea. We are basically taking the clientele networks that control 

the Haitian state and putting more money into them. The reason 

the aid community has gone around the Haitian state is because 

it’s so dysfunctional. 

31 

I collected a few statistics which I thought would be illustrative 

of the condition of the Haitian state. First, Transparency International, a well-respected international NGO that does work on 

corruption, gave Haiti the 10th lowest score in the entire world in 

terms of corruption levels. Its rank falls next to those of Equatorial 

Guinea, Burundi, and Iran. 

Second, there is a very interesting statistic about the nature of 

doing business in Haiti provided by the World Bank in its Easeof-Doing-Business Report. Haiti ranks 151st out of 183, having the 

worst business climate in the world, save 30 other countries. And 

as a result, legitimate businesses don’t go there because it’s hard 

to register, you have to pay bribes to get your licenses, and so on. 

The reason why the country’s so poor is because the business climate is so bad. There have to be efforts to reform it because, if that 

is not done, then all other reforms and all other aid that we provide will simply not be effective. Unless there is a growing private 

sector, a dynamic economy, and an emerging middle class, with a 

growing private sector economy. Haiti will remain a failed state in 

5 years unless major reforms are undertaken now. 

There are 2 million Haitian Americans. They are upwardly mobile, they’re hardworking, they’re entrepreneurial, but they live 

here and in Canada, not in Haiti. Eighty percent of Haitians with 

college degrees live in Canada and the United States, not in Haiti. 

That is a very disturbing statistic. There’s a massive drain of 

skilled people out of the country to the United States. And when 

they get here, they do very well. So, it’s not the Haitian people; it’s 

the system that is profoundly dysfunctional. 

How do we change this? Well, for one, we’re going to have to try 

to bring back, in my view, the diaspora to Haiti. We did this, by 

the way, very quietly in Afghanistan. During the first few months, 

we brought back 1,000 Afghans from the diaspora living in Europe 

and the United States—including Ph.D.s and major business figures. And, the five best-run ministries in Kabul were run by the 

diaspora people we had brought back. We quietly put them on the 

USAID payroll, not directly, but through our contractors, and those 

people ran what turned out to be the best-run ministries. 

I suggest, on a larger scale, something like that be done with 

other donors because, if we just funnel money into the existing system, it’s not going to improve governance in the country. Unless 

you improve governance and the rule of law, you are not going to 

have a functional Haitian state, and you will continue to have what 

we just had happen. Instead of what we saw in Chile, we will witness a recurrence of this terrible tragedy at some point in the 

future with another natural disaster. 

I could go through a whole bunch of other indicators, but there’s 

one other statistic that’s also very relevant and should be mentioned here. Haiti is one of the most densely populated countries 

in the world. It ranks 30th in terms of land per capita. And the 

30 countries that are more densely populated are little, tiny countries like Singapore which is rich, but it’s not a country; it’s a citystate. Haiti is more densely populated than India. It cannot feed 

itself, even if it had the best agricultural system in the world. We 

should improve the agricultural sector. USAID and other donors 

are proposing with the Haitian Government to decentralize the 

32 

economy away from its concentration in the capital city: this is a 

very good idea. I strongly support it. We need to put more of a 

focus on that. But, unless there’s industrialization in Haiti, it will 

continue to be a very poor country. 

Industrialization did take place in Haiti during the 1980s and 

the mid-1990s. There were 400,000 people working in factories— 

assembly plants, basically, for manufacturing soccer balls, shoes, 

clothing and such—and they received a monthly wage. They were 

paying taxes. And, then, there was political chaos with Aristide 

and the military coup, and then the United States imposed economic sanctions. These sanctions, along with political turmoil and 

rampant violence, drove the middle class out of Haiti to the United 

States and Canada and the manufacturing plants moved to Central 

America. 

So, unless there’s order, and unless we open our markets up to 

Haitian products, they are not going to have a growing economy. 

We should take a holistic approach. We need to have a free trade 

agreement with Haiti so there are no restrictions on the importation of Haitian goods to the United States. I don’t think it’s a big 

threat to our economy to open our markets up to one of the poorest 

countries in the world. Congress did a very good thing in 2008 by 

passing a partial bill. I think we need a full bill. We need a full 

bill to open markets up because that will attract the business communities of Canada and the United States, possibly using people 

from the Haitian diaspora to begin industrializing the country, not 

just in Port-au-Prince, but in other parts of the country as well. 

And, perhaps, this industrialization can also be attached to agriculture because you can have industrialization where you’re bottling canning and there is food processing. We also need rural 

roads for that. 

One of my concerns regarding the aid budget is that there’s a lot 

of money for programs that are visible, quick, and appealing. But, 

no one wants to fund the programs that aren’t politically appealing. 

And this is not just in Congress; this is the case with the executive 

branch, too. Thirty-five percent of our total foreign aid budget 

worldwide is for health projects. Do you know anybody in favor of 

disease? I don’t know any interest group in favor of disease. There 

are, however, lots of people who don’t like agricultural programs. 

I won’t go through them all; you can guess who they are. But, they 

usually would stop USAID’s request for more money from this body 

for agricultural programs. They don’t like fertilizer, they don’t like 

GMO seed, or they think it’s competition for the U.S. farmers, 

which is nonsense. And so, such programs do not get funded—until 

the recent food crisis occurred caused by rising food prices. 

The governance and democracy component of of AID constitutes 

only 4 percent of our aid programming, while 35 percent is dedicated to health. So, the money is not there to do the things we need 

to do because the budgets are earmarked based on political pressures, which I understand. I was a former State legislator of Massachusetts for 12 years; I understand the pressures that Members 

of Congress are under. And, I ran AID for 5 years; I know what 

you all requested of us: the things that help people, personally. If 

we don’t improve governance in Haiti, we’re not going to be able 

to have the Haitian Government running schools that children go 

33 

1 Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61703220100208. 

2 CIA World Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2046. 

html. 3Government of Haiti: http://www.haiticonference.org/HaitilActionlPlanlENG.pdf. 4 National Academy of Public Administration: http://www.napawash.org/haitilfinal.pdf. 

to or providing health clinics that can treat people so we don’t have 

to keep going in with this huge international apparatus to run the 

country on their behalf. 

So, we need governance reform as a top priority. That is what’s 

in the AID budget. I urge Congress to approve, without any restrictions, what AID requested in terms of its governance and democracy program because, without it, this reconstruction effort is simply not going to work. 

And, the second most important thing is economic growth. People 

say, ‘‘We need to just have free trade.’’ That is not enough. Haiti 

needs to have improved policies to make it easier for people to start 

businesses, to create jobs, to have economic growth. Haiti needs 

rural roads to stimulate economic growth. If there’s economic 

growth, citizens pay taxes, which will fund the Haitian Government to operate the way it’s supposed to operate, not as a failed 

state. 

So, those are some ideas. I have written testimony with many 

other ideas, but time is short, and I know you want to ask questions, Senator. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Natsios follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT ANDREW S. NATSIOS, PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE, WASHINGTON, DC 

In the wake of the January 12 quake that killed more than 200,000 people and 

left over 1 million homeless, an avalanche of humanitarian aid poured into the Haiti 

to save lives and reduce human suffering.1 Due to its magnitude and proximity to 

Haiti’s lone urban center and economic hub, Port-au-Prince, this earthquake has 

demonstrated the extent and scope of vulnerability of the Haitian population, of 

whom over 80 percent were below the poverty line before the earthquake.2

As the immediate crisis stabilizes, the United States must transition its assistance programs in Haiti in order to promote broad-based, long-term economic growth 

and gradually phase out short-term humanitarian aid. In March of this year, the 

Haitian Government unveiled their ‘‘Action Plan for National Recovery and Development of Haiti,’’ which portrayed this tragic event as ‘‘an opportunity to unite Haitians of all classes and origins in a shared project to rebuild the country on new 

foundations.’’ 3 The Government’s desire to ‘‘reverse the spiral of vulnerability’’ created by natural disasters seems to focus on the proper target. 

This tragedy was not simply a natural disaster; it was a man-made disaster stemming from a failed Haitian state characterized by widespread patrimonialism, corruption, and critically ineffective service delivery. Despite $5.3 billion in foreign aid 

invested by bilateral and multilateral donors from 1990 to 2005 (approximately $1.5 

billion of which came from the United States), Haiti persists as one of the poorest 

and worst governed countries in the hemisphere, if not the world.4 Much of this U.S. 

Government assistance has been humanitarian rather than nation-building assistance, and has kept people alive through repeated political crisis. The Government 

of Haiti has been characterized as autocratic and unstable. To ensure loyalty within 

a society that has been riddled with gang violence and plagued by abject poverty 

for decades, elites have created patronage networks to employ their supporters, provided selective public services to them, all funded by rent-seeking and limits on the 

creation of legitimate institutions which might challenge their monopoly control over 

the society. 

In 2009, Transparency International assigned Haiti the 10th lowest score in the 

world on its Corruption Perception Index, next to Equatorial Guinea, Burundi, and 

34 

5Transparency International: http://www.transparency.org/policylresearch/surveyslindices/ 

cpi/2009/cpil2009ltable. 6Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/10/AR20100 

31003012.html. 

Iran.5 According to an advisor to the organization, Roslyn Hees, coauthor of the 

handbook ‘‘Preventing Corruption in Humanitarian Operations,’’ Haiti is the perfect 

storm for corruption risk due to ‘‘shattered institutions, an anemic state, a history 

of graft, and the sudden deluge of aid money.’’ 6 Not only does this failed state ensure that the majority of Haitians will remain poor, but it also limits the potential 

of aid programs that simply provide budgetary support to the Haitian Government. 

The solution must be to focus on improving public policy, establishing the rule of 

law, and improving governance. 

Despite the bleak outlook that exists today, Haiti did experience a promising 

period of industrialization in the late 1980s during which time a class of regularly 

paid workers was developing from an emerging base of assembly plants. However, 

with the overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in September 1991, a military regime 

took control of the country; the violence and repression that followed locked the 

country into a self-destructive condition that remains to this day. Even though 

Aristide was brought back to office with international help 3 years later in 1994, 

the hope he had represented largely vanished as he brutalized his opponents and 

drove the emergent working and middle class to Canada and the United States. 

Additionally, U.S. and U.N. Security Council Sanctions in the 1990s contributed 

to the end of the hope of industrialization and economic growth. These sanctions 

created a skilled labor shortage as there was an exodus of the Haitian educated, 

middle class to the United States and Canada, a trend that continues to this day. 

In fact, a recent poll has indicated that 67 percent of Haitians would emigrate if 

they could. Two million Haitians already live in the United States, of whom 60 percent are now American-born, and four-fifths of Haiti’s college-educated citizens live 

outside of the country. A new Haiti must have substantial educated middle class 

as a foundation, or it will fail. 

The weakness of the Haitian state is clearly evident when this tragic event is juxtaposed with an equivalent earthquake in Chile in February which led to less than 

500 casualties and was far less consequential in terms of physical destruction. Unlike Haiti, Chile is one of the best governed countries in Latin America, has a very 

impressive business community and a vibrant nonprofit sector. In Chile, it is apparent that building standards were enforced so buildings did not collapse in the earthquake, emergency response teams were reasonably well-prepared, and the government demonstrated the capacity to help. In Haiti, however, it is very apparent that 

the situation was the opposite. 

In a new book, ‘‘Violence and Social Orders,’’ Nobel Prize winning economist 

Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast argue that it is the density of 

legitimate institutions that distinguishes rich from poor countries. Rich countries 

have them, and poor countries do not. The United States, for example, is probably 

more densely packed with institutions per capita than any society in world history 

which is one of the primary determinants of America’s wealth and stability. In fact, 

there is one nonprofit for every 160 people in United States and over 85,000 units 

of government serving U.S. citizens. If measurement was possible, Haiti would probably have the lowest number of legitimate institutions of any country in the Western Hemisphere, and perhaps the world. 

A World Bank study of Haitian governance reports noted that ‘‘30 percent of civil 

service were phantom employees . . . One ministry had 10,000 employees, only 

about half of whom were ever at work.’’ A USAID evaluation of Haitian Government 

institutions reported they are ‘‘characterized by lack of trained personnel; no performance-based personnel system, no accepted hiring, firing, and promotion procedures; heavy top down management; and a decided lack of direction.’’ In a word, 

Haiti was already a failed state before the earthquake took place and the poor response after the earthquake was a function of it being a failed state. 

International business and capital markets do not invest money in failed states, 

and without such investment, job creation on the scale necessary to change the dynamics of Haitian society is impossible. Beyond the terrible loss of human life from 

the earthquake, a much less visible, but nevertheless significant devastation was 

the destruction of jobs, businesses, and economic activity. So, Haiti now faces the 

twin economic challenge of mass unemployment from the earthquake and a terrible 

business climate derived from its failed state status. According to the World Bank’s 

2010 ‘‘Ease of Doing Business’’ Indicators, which provide an objective measure of 

business regulations and their enforcement across 183 economies, Haiti ranked 

35 

7World Bank: http://www.doingbusiness.org/ExploreEconomies/?economyid=85. 

8 National Academy of Public Administration: http://www.napawash.org/haitilfinal.pdf. 9 Robert Klitgaard, ‘‘Addressing Corruption in Haiti,’’ February 2010: http://www.cgu.edu/ 

PDFFiles/Presidents%20Office/ 

Addressing%20Systemic%20Corruption%20in%20Haiti%20l3l.pdf. 10http://talkradionews.com/2010/03/corruption-watchdog-worried-by-haitian-reconstructionplan/. 

151st , making it very difficult to start a legitimate business.7 The Bank’s report 

indicates that, while the average cost of starting a business is 4.7 percent of income 

per capita in OECD countries and 36.6 percent across Latin America, it constitutes 

227.9 percent of income per capita in Haiti. And, while registering property in 

OECD and Latin American countries takes an average of 25.0 and 70.4 days respectively, it takes over a year in Haiti. According to the Bank’s ‘‘Protecting Investors— 

Transparency of Transactions Index,’’ Haiti has scored 2 out of 10, significantly 

below the average score of 4.0 across Latin America. 

These figures demonstrate that, without formal institutions capable and able of 

providing the enforcement mechanisms necessary to decrease risk and uncertainty, 

businesses will not pursue economic opportunities and invest in the economy even 

though this is essential for recovery. Thus, any effort to build new institutions must 

incorporate private sector development; it cannot solely target the Haitian state in 

a vacuum. Despite the critical importance of these objectives, the challenge ahead is 

daunting, particularly considering the general consensus among the international 

donor community that long-term development programs in Haiti have been largely 

ineffective in the past. A National Academy of Public Administration report of 2006 

on why foreign aid has failed in Haiti summarized general donor opinion which has 

‘‘variously characterized Haiti as a nightmare, predator, collapsed, failed, failing, 

parasitic, kleptocratic, phantom, virtual or pariah state.’’ The World Bank is poised 

to invest another $100 million in Haiti even though the Director of its Operations 

Evaluation Department claimed in 2002 that ‘‘the outcome of World Bank assistance 

programs [in Haiti from 1986 to 2002 has been] rated unsatisfactory (if not highly 

so), the institutional development impact, negligible, and the sustainability of the 

few benefits that have accrued, unlikely.’’ The Bank also noted that ‘‘Haiti has dysfunctional budgetary, financial or procurement systems, making financial and aid 

management impossible.’’ 8 Even the Government of Haiti, in 1997, admitted that 

it had a serious aid management problem. 

Historical evidence suggests that countries can make significant reforms following 

a catastrophic natural disaster of the scale Haiti has just been through. It is important to note that the solidarity and optimism expressed in the GOH’s ‘‘Action Plan 

for National Recovery and Development of Haiti’’ is nothing new. According to Robert Klitgaard in his study ‘‘Addressing Corruption in Haiti,’’ when Aristide came to 

office in 1991, he promised to ‘‘wash away the old Haiti of Papa Doc and Baby Doc 

Duvalier, the tonton macoutes, the predatory corruption’’ when in fact he simply replaced one tyranny with another. As recently as April 2009, ‘‘Prime Minister 

Miche`le Duvivier Pierre-Louis gave an impassioned speech to Haiti’s aid donors: ‘I 

believe that together we will seize this opportunity to make a real difference and 

change forever the course of history,’ she said. ‘We strongly believe that Haiti is at 

a turning point, perhaps even a tipping point.’ But she also acknowledged that Haiti 

calling for a new beginning can evoke derisive laughter. ‘In Haiti, popular comedians have for the past 50 years parodied the almost theatrical repeated announcement of a ‘Great Beginning’ in which they did not really believe themselves. The 

time has come to break away from such cynicism.’ ’’ 9 Action Plan itself calls for a 

‘‘progressive increase in decentralized skills’’ and an ‘‘increase in the role of [local] 

municipalities in reducing vulnerabilities and protecting inhabitants.’’ However, 

such reform will remain superficial unless there is true ownership in the Haitian 

Government. The composition of the Action Plan’s proposed Interim Commission for 

Haitian Reconstruction has been called into question by Transparency International’s Senior Consultant Roslyn Hees: ‘‘the majority of the commission would be 

made up of international agencies and a minority would be made up of Haitian representatives. Even within the Haitian representation, there is no one from civil society, except a representative of Haitian unions, who cover a minuscule proportion of 

the Haitian workforce since most of the workforce is informal and not unionized.’’ 10

Although it is essential that the Haitian Government assume ownership in the 

agenda-building process, it is critical that the United States contributes only to a 

long-term development plan that is both inclusive and transformational. 

As the United States transitions from short-term humanitarian assistance toward 

the reconstruction of Haiti’s shattered capital and economy, our aid must alter the 

36 

11 Jonathan Rauch 12 Jonathan Rauch 

power structure within the Haitian Government and economy, the open the society 

up to genuine democratic principles and to a free market economy. Too many policymakers in Washington too often take reconstruction literally—as bricks and mortar 

alone—when in fact rebuilding needs to address much more than that. Clearly, port 

facilities, roads, bridges, schools, health clinics, and water systems (which were already crumbling before the earthquake) must be rebuilt. But, if that is the extent 

of our reconstruction efforts, then Haiti will simply revert to its failed state status 

and whatever is reconstructed will begin to crumble over time without institutions 

to ensure maintenance. 

Moreover, U.S. technical assistance to Haiti has proven ineffective because the institutions necessary to take advantage of these knowledge transfers do not exist. 

Since 1989, USAID/OFDA has offered an ‘‘Advanced First Responders Course’’ 

throughout Latin America and the Caribbean within its Technical Assistance and 

Training Program (TATP). From June 1998 to May 2003, there have been more 

than 12,000 first responders in the TATP which has certified more than 2,100 active 

instructors. However, no matter how much training is done, functional institutions—which Haiti does not have—are needed to use the trained people properly. 

Unless the U.S. Government balances physical reconstruction and technical assistance with institution-building—a much more difficult, time-consuming, less visible, but more essential effort—Haiti will remain a failed state. The political pressure from Washington, as it has been in other state-building exercises, will be for 

Haiti reconstruction to be fast, visible, and produce measureable results when, in 

fact, building functional institutions will take 10 to 20 years, its greatest successes 

will not be dramatic or visible, and many will be difficult to quantify or measure. 

Aid efforts in Haiti in the past have focused too much on delivering public services 

through nongovernmental organizations and international organizations instead of 

the trying to reform the Haitian institutions that should be delivering these services. 

Thus, first and foremost, Haiti’s transformation into a functional nation requires 

a strong emphasis on issues of governance and rule of law within our aid programs. 

The predominant culture and values of a society can either facilitate or impede development. The latter is certainly the case in terms of Haiti’s destructive political 

culture which has been marred by patramonialism, clientelism, and patronage networks. 

Lawrence E. Harrison points out in his book, ‘‘The Central Liberal Truth,’’ that 

‘‘Haiti suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences which 

spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels 

of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices 

often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 

10.’’ 

In ‘‘Violence and Social Orders,’’ Douglass North describes two types of societies: 

limited-access order and open-access order societies. Most of human history has 

been dominated by the former which are ‘‘governed by a dominant elite or coalition 

that stays on top by controlling and distributing patronage and privilege. How you 

fare, in a limited-access order, depends on who you are and whom you know.’’ Over 

the past few hundred years, however, open-access orders have emerged which ‘‘allow 

political participation and economic access on equal terms according to impersonal 

rules. Broad, government-enforced rights replace selective, government-distributed 

privileges.’’ 11

Using North’s terminology, it is critical that there is a transformation in Haiti 

from such a limited-access order to an open-access order because they are ‘‘more politically stable and economically successful than their precursors; in fact, today they 

dominate the world. But developing a culture based on rule of law under which 

dominant elites willingly surrender their monopoly on power can take centuries, if 

it ever happens at all. Only a mature natural state—one with durable institutions, 

a military under firm political control, and elites who are acclimated to the rule of 

law—can make the transition to an open order.’’ 12

Any effort to build new Haitian institutions will also require security, without 

which the exodus of educated professionals will continue. The GOH must develop 

a trained police force which respects human rights, avoids politics, and ensures the 

security of the Haitian people. Criminal gangs linked to the drug trade have grown 

more powerful over the past few years and are behind the growing violence in Haitian society. Unless this is trend is arrested, any effort to build new institutions will 

fail. While crime fighting has been entirely the province of some 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers since 2004, the Haitian Government must develop local police and security 

37 

13 USAID Summary: http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdfldocs/PDACN939.pdf. 

forces for sustained security with the U.N. providing back up until these institutions 

are functional. 

Of course, institution-building efforts must be coupled with progrowth economic 

policies. The GOH’s Action Plan aptly recognizes the need to decentralize the country economically and politically away from Port-au-Prince through the development 

of regional economies and the subsequent diffusion of job creation. Haiti needs to 

develop a functioning economic system, agricultural export markets, and a rural 

road network. And although Haiti currently enjoys duty-free access to U.S. markets 

for certain Haitian-made apparel items through the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act of 2008, a more comprehensive free 

trade agreement between our countries will tie our economy with Haiti’s and recreate a market for Haitian products which with economic reform can stimulate growth 

and job creation.13 The Haitian private sector will be much more likely to accept 

reform than the public sector, and thus can be an engine for progress. 

We must also encourage the participation of the prosperous, educated Haitiandiaspora in the United States and Canadian because they have the potential to be 

major assets in the reconstruction of the country. As Haiti is only 600 miles from 

the U.S. mainland, such individuals would be able to come and go with relative 

ease. Such efforts should be accompanied by a program that enables Haitians to 

come to the United States to attain education. The most successful institution-building program used by USAID historically was its scholarship programs which 

brought 18,000 students a year to U.S. colleges and universities to get their graduate degrees. The USAID scholarship programs have been phased out over time because Washington regulators demanded immediate and visible results which scholarships could not produce. But they can produce transformational long-term change 

because graduates usually return to their home countries from their U.S. experience 

as reformers. Bringing promising Haitians to the United States to get their graduate degrees with safeguards to ensure they return to Haiti when they graduate can 

complement the return of the Haitian diaspora to build new institutions. 

Such transformational programs would surely affect the economic, social, and political power structures of Haitian society. But without buy-in from elites, the vested 

interests in Haitian society will undermine any reform efforts. Even though major 

natural disasters are sometimes a catalyst to reform movements, no outside aid 

agency, whether it be the U.N., World Bank, the NGOs, or USAID, can substitute 

for Haitian leadership. 

Without such competent and honest Haitian leadership, any institution-building 

exercise will fail. Lasting change will be achieved when Haitian political leaders 

show the political will to enact and implement major political and economic reforms. 

Haitian President Prevel has shown some technical skill in undertaking improved 

governance over the past 2 years, but he remained virtually invisible in the humanitarian aid effort which damaged him politically. He will need help, and one of the 

best ways of generating that help in a country which has had a chronic leadership 

deficit, is to bring back Haitians from the diaspora to help him build new Haitian 

institutions. 

It is important to differentiate between the political ‘‘ownership’’ recommended 

here within and other circumstances in which donor agencies simply provide budgetary support to recipient country governments so that they may pursue their objectives, regardless of what they may be. Paul Collier, in his book ‘‘The Bottom Billion,’’ equates the external provision of budgetary support to countries like Haiti to 

the large inflows of oil revenue enjoyed by oil-rich developing countries such as Nigeria that have ‘‘depressingly little to show for it.’’ He argues that past evidence 

demonstrates that ‘‘large inflows of money without any restrictions do not seem to 

be well spent in many of the countries’’ where the poorest populations reside. Certainly in Haiti, where corruption is rampant and much of the government bureaucracy is a phantom, such budgetary support would attract predatory forces, even if 

controls were introduced. 

Regarding the aid allocated by the United States for the reconstruction of Haiti, 

a very long-time horizon will be required as it takes considerable time for institutions to form in such a society. Any development plan of less than 10 years will not 

yield sustainable and transformational results. Given the operational context 

through which aid programs will operate, the usual quarterly measurements demanded by the federal oversight agencies will not be useful and as contracts and 

grants will not be implemented within standard timeframes because of Haiti’s weak 

institutions. 

To do this there must be a reduction of the regulatory and compliance burden on 

USAID. The Haitian Government and the USAID mission in Haiti will be empowVerDate Nov 24 2008 18:25 Dec 17, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\HEARING FILES\2010 ISSUE HEARINGS TO PREPARE FOR PRINTING\ISSUE HEARIN
38 

ered if funds are provided with as little micromanagement from Washington as possible. And, as predictable funding streams allow for greater dedication to programs, 

it is important that there is as much funding at the beginning of the plan as at 

the end. Washington must also avoid earmarking any funding by sectors or programs as the most transformational sectors have the least interest group support 

in Washington and will not produce short-term measureable outcomes. 

If western countries want to end the dysfunctional cycle of crisis and failed band 

aid development in Haiti, only an institution-based model of reconstruction will succeed. U.S. aid programs must be designed to facilitate better governance by the Haitian Government in addition to economic growth across Haitian society. Priority 

must be placed on the agricultural sector and the secondary road network to create 

an integrated national Haitian economy, rather than one dependent exclusively on 

the capital, Port-au-Prince. The professional expertise of the Haitian diaspora 

should be utilized, and scholarships must be extended to train professional managers and technical staff in GOH ministries. And, such initiatives should be complemented by security sector reform that produces a functioning criminal justice system and police force to protect the Haitian people. While history may project a 

pessimistic outlook for Haiti’s transformation, it also provides critical lessons that 

the GOH and international community must consider in order to move Haiti toward 

a brighter future. 

Senator CASEY. Mr. Natsios, thanks very much. 

Mr. Penn. 

STATEMENT OF SEAN PENN, FOUNDER, J/P HAITIAN RELIEF 

ORGANIZATION, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 

Mr. PENN. Mr. Chairman, Senator Corker, my name is Sean 

Penn. I’ve been on the ground in Haiti, since the first week following January’s earthquake, as NGO director and CEO for the 

J/P Haitian Relief Organization. 

Since that time, my team and I have lived in a tent camp in the 

Bourdon area of Port-au-Prince, adjacent to and administering aid 

to a 55,000-person IDP camp, one of the largest ad hoc camps in 

the country. My organization has been designated camp manager 

of this site, locally called ‘‘Terrain de Golfe’’ by the U.N. International Organization of Migration. 

From our first days in Haiti, my team and I witnessed amputations without anesthesia or IV pain medication, things we soon 

were able to supply to hospitals and clinics throughout the city and 

country; emergency amputations performed in spontaneously raised 

tent operating rooms, dusty and mosquito-ridden; limbs severed 

from children with tools more familiar to the local hardware store 

than to those we traditionally expect in the hands of surgeons. 

It is true that this stage of post-quake trauma and drama has 

largely subsided. Only 2 weeks ago, however, a less tangible, visible, or fundable emergency raised its head. Our camp clinic diagnosed what became the first confirmed case of diphtheria. I rode 

in the back of the ambulance while the patient was refused from 

several hospitals because the 15-year-old boy, Oriole Lynn Peter, 

was diagnosed with a disease for which those hospitals had no 

treatment capability. 

In this city of ruins, five fully functionally hospitals have been 

allowed to close, despite the emergent disasters, due to financial 

undersupport and the inertia of protective overscrutiny. In many 

cases, the bureaucracy of international aid is ‘‘protecting people to 

death.’’ 

Diphtheria is among the first of five things that an American 

traveling to Haiti is inoculated against, and yet, in a country devastated with hundreds of millions of American-donated dollars of 

39 

dedicated emergency aid, and billions pledged for reconstruction, 

there were no isolation wards, few ventilators and, despite the allout last-minute efforts of the administrations of every major hospital in the city, the American Red Cross, the dedicated and 

beyond-job-description effort of the commander of U.S. military 

forces in Haiti, the WHO, USAID, and the CDC, along with a fractured Haitian Ministry of Health, it took 14 hours, between all of 

these organizations, to locate a single patient dose of the 

immunoglobulin that would have likely saved this 15-year-old boy’s 

life, had it been readily available. 

As we rode through the rubble and traffic-blocked streets in 

search of his care, I held the ankle of an animated and normal 15- 

year-old boy, who, to his own knowledge, was merely suffering from 

a sore throat and a bit of fever. He couldn’t have known that the 

grey-hued bacteria in his esophagus would kill him within a day 

and a half, and it did. 

Since that day, a series of diphtheria cases have come to light, 

including another one in our camp, brought to our hospital 4 days 

ago. 

But, diphtheria is only one of many diseases that threaten, in 

particular, the 1.8 million displaced today, living in compressed 

and unsanitary camps, where tent-to-tent construction would take 

just one match to create an inferno that can incinerate thousands. 

In a city where nearly no access—where there is nearly no access 

to electricity, there is little fuel to run the generators, few lights 

to generate, and the rapes of women and children may occur at 

will, it will be the rain of this season that spreads the diarrheal 

diseases, where, globally, 80 percent of the fatal cases are among 

children under 5. There are hundreds of thousands of them in Portau-Prince alone. 

It should be said that, while there are claims to grand programs 

of immunization, it is the simple truth that Haitians, for the most 

part, remain unprotected, and that there is little evidence that 

those that have been immunized have records or access to established boosters and followup necessary with the—as with all immunizations. 

It should also be said that, in a city the size of Port-au-Prince, 

as with the densely populated—all densely populated areas of 

Haiti, the idea that, as in the case of the diphtheria immunoglobulin, a single warehouse maintains what little supply may 

exist, is an unacceptable acceptance. 

Prevention is difficult to get people excited about, but cold chains 

for the transport and preservation of these necessary immunizations and treatments must be established throughout Port-auPrince and Haiti, as much stockpiles for the necessary remedies for 

the dehydration that comes with diarrheal diseases. 

It must also be said that the quality and training of prequake 

health care in Haiti was already at a minimum, and that with the 

death and flight of so many among the most capable in Haitian 

medical community, that it will be some time before the international medical staff will be relieved of the humanitarian and 

training demand. 

I come here today as a witness, not only to the state of current 

emergency, but also to the heroic efforts of the United States and 

40 

international doctors, soldiers, and relief workers, of the NGOs in 

partnership and service with the great Haitian people and their 

government. 

I come here today and hope that we’ll address with bold clarity 

the razor’s edge upon which Haiti lies, so that all in our own country, all that our country has given in sacrifice and service, will not 

be washed away with this rainy season and leave bright and dancing Haitian eyes to go still in death from disease and flood and, 

God forbid, the man-made disaster of violent unrest. 

From President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and Secretary of Defense Gates, and throughout the policies and generosities offered this situation to date, the United States can hold its 

head very high. The compassionate and no-nonsense posture of our 

military has been moving and inspiring. But, with the official 

emergency phase declared over, as most of them redeploy into 

other struggles, we owe it to all of them, and to ourselves, in reestablishing the character of American foreign policy, to stay the 

course in Haiti. Make no mistake, this is a war against our ally 

and neighbor, and we have only this chance to show the world that 

we are willing to fight that war and save its victims, and are not 

dependent on hating and killing their assailant. 

It is a war against the diseases and preventable disasters caused 

by nature and poverty. And the United States military has played, 

and must continue to play, a central role in Haiti, as the surge of 

the enemy is imminent. Countrywide, we have dropped American 

troop levels from about 22,000 to somewhere in the area of 500. 

We must also not underestimate the likelihood, known to all of 

us on the ground in Haiti, of some level of violent social unrest. As 

Americans, we could call on the Government of Haiti and our own 

Government to acknowledge that a state of emergency still exists, 

to demand full transparency in the way that aid is distributed, and 

accountability for how aid organizations advertise themselves in 

the solicitation of funds. Full and total transparency. 

Now is the time for all concerned parties to acknowledge that an 

emergency phase is simply an economic determination and that 

prevention of foreseeable human tolls on massive levels—in particular, young children—cannot be summarily dismissed by the 

aspiration of a monumental reconstruction, offering empowerment, 

demanding independence in governance, or claiming it is a distraction from the rebuilding of a country that, in many ways, was 

never built in the first place. 

The Haitian people are as strong and resilient as any I’ve ever 

seen. There are great lessons of character for our country to learn 

from the Haitians. President Preval and his administration have 

proven, in their prequake efforts, the will of Haiti to overcome its 

devastating legacies. But, to demand of them, or encourage their 

demand of, a fractured society’s independence prematurely will be 

murder by another name. Issues of equity and distribution of aid 

are a fine aspiration, but, when the emergency room has got a line 

out the door, and the hospital pharmaceutical stockpile has not 

been inventoried, we have to find a way to treat patients while the 

counting is done, and not leave them at the door to die on the 

street. 

41 

I am, and I believe I speak for all responsible aid workers, in full 

support of parallel planning and reconstruction and the nurturing 

of an independent people’s self-reliance. But, as we punish those 

who are lazy, punish those who are corrupt, so shall we kill the 

innocent and the willful. 

In an emergency, donors offer money and expect it to be spent 

helping people. I hope we are here today to encourage just that. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Penn follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SEAN PENN, FOUNDER, J/P HAITI RELIEF ORGANIZATION, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my name is Sean Penn. I have been 

in Haiti as Director and CEO of my NGO J/P Haitian Relief Organization, and have 

been on the ground in Haiti since the first week following January’s earthquake. 

Since that time, my team and I have lived in a tent camp in the Bourdon area of 

Port-au-Prince, adjacent to and administering aid to a 55,000 person IDP camp, one 

of the largest ad-hock camps in the country. My organization has been designated 

by the U.N. International Office of Migration as camp management for this IDP 

camp. 

From our first days in Haiti, my team and I witnessed amputations without anesthesia or IV pain medication, things we soon were able to supply to hospitals and 

clinics throughout the city and the country. Limbs severed in spontaneously raised 

tent operating rooms, dusty and mosquito ridden. Limbs severed from children with 

tools more familiar to our local hardware store than to those we traditionally expect 

in the hands of surgeons. It is true that this stage of post-quake trauma and drama 

has largely subsided. 

Only 2 weeks ago however, a less tangible, visible or fundable emergency raised 

its head. Our camp clinic diagnosed what became the first confirmed case of diphtheria. I rode in the back of the ambulance while the patient was refused from several hospitals because the 15-year-old boy, Oriole Lynn Peter, was diagnosed with 

a disease for which those hospitals had no treatment capability. In this city of ruins 

5 fully functional hospitals have been allowed to close despite these emergent disasters, facing financial undersupport and overscrutiny. In many cases, the bureaucracy of international aid is protecting people to death. Diphtheria is among the first 

five things that an American traveling to Haiti is inoculated against, and yet, in 

this devastated country with hundreds of millions of American donated dollars of 

dedicated emergency aid and billions pledged for reconstruction, there were no isolation wards, few ventilators, and despite the all out last minute efforts of the American Red Cross, the administrations of every major hospital in the city, the dedicated and beyond job description effort of the commander of the U.S. military forces 

in Haiti (Major General Trombitas), the WHO, USAID, and the CDC, along with 

a fractured Haitian Ministry of health, it took 14 hours between all of these organizations to locate a single patient dose of the immunoglobulin that would likely have 

saved this 15-year-old boy’s life had it been readily available. As we rode through 

the rubble and traffic-blocked streets in search of his care I held the ankle of an 

animated and normal 15-year-old boy who to his own knowledge was merely suffering from a sore throat and a bit of a fever. He couldn’t have known that the greyhued bacteria would kill him within a day and half and it did. 

Since that day, a series of diphtheria cases have come to light, including another 

one in our camp brought to our hospital 4 days ago. But diphtheria is only one of 

many diseases that threaten, in particular, the 1.8 million displaced today, living 

in compressed and unsanitary camps, where tent-to-tent construction would take 

one match to create the inferno that could incinerate thousands. In a city with 

nearly no access to electricity there is little fuel to run generators, few lights to generate, and the rapes of women and children occur at will. It will be the rain of this 

season that spreads the diarrheal diseases that globally find their victims—80 percent among children under 5. There are hundreds of thousands of them in Port-auPrince alone. It should be said that while there are claims to grand programs of immunization it is the simple truth that most Haitians remain unprotected and that 

there is little evidence that those that have been immunized have records or access 

to establish boosters and followup necessary with all immunizations. It should also 

be said that in a city the size of Port-au-Prince, as with all the densely populated 

areas in Haiti, the idea that, as in the case with the diphtheria immunoglobulin, 

a single warehouse maintains what little supply may exist is an unacceptable acVerDate Nov 24 2008 18:25 Dec 17, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\HEARING FILES\2010 ISSUE HEARINGS TO PREPARE FOR PRINTING\ISSUE HEARIN
42 

ceptance. Prevention is difficult to get people excited about. But cold chains for the 

transport and preservation of these necessary immunizations and treatments must 

be established throughout Port-au-Prince and Haiti, as must stockpiles of the necessary remedies for the dehydration that comes with diarrheal diseases. It must also 

be said that the quality and training of prequake health care in Haiti was already 

at a minimum and that with the death and flight of so many among the most capable in the Haitian medical community, that it will be some time before international 

medical staff will be relieved of the humanitarian and training demand. 

I come here today as a witness not only to a state of current emergency but also 

to the heroic efforts of United States and international doctors, soldiers, and relief 

workers, of the NGOs in partnership and service with the great Haitian people and 

their government. I come here today in the hope that we will address with bold clarity the razors edge upon which Haiti lies so that all that our own country has given 

in sacrifice and service will not be washed away with this rainy season and leave 

bright and dancing Haitian eyes to go still in death from disease and flood, and God 

forbid the manmade disaster of violent unrest. From President Obama, Secretary 

of State Clinton, and Secretary of Defense Gates and throughout the policies and 

generosities offered this situation to date, the United States can hold its head very 

high. The compassionate and no nonsense posture of our military has been moving 

and inspiring. But, with the official ‘‘emergency phase’’ declared over, as most of 

them redeploy into other struggles, we owe it to all of them and to ourselves in reestablishing the character of American foreign policy to stay the course in Haiti. Make 

no mistake, this is a war against our ally and neighbor, and we have only this 

chance to show the world that we are willing to fight that war to save its victims 

and are not dependent on hating and killing their assailant. It is a war against the 

diseases and preventable disasters caused by nature and poverty. 

We must also not underestimate the likelihood, known to all of us on the ground 

in Haiti, of violent social unrest. As Americans, we should call on the Government 

of Haiti and on our own government, to acknowledge that a state of emergency still 

exists. To demand FULL TRANSPARENCY in the way that aid is distributed and 

accountability for how aid organizations advertise themselves in the solicitation of 

funds. Full and total transparency. Now is the time for all concerned parties to acknowledge that an ‘‘emergency phase’’ is simply an economic determination, and 

that the prevention of foreseeable human tolls on massive levels, in particular young 

children, cannot be summarily dismissed by the aspiration of a monumental reconstruction, offering empowerment, demanding independence and governance, or 

claiming it as a distraction from the rebuilding of a country that in many ways was 

never built in the first place. 

The Haitian people are as strong and resilient as any I have ever seen. There are 

great lessons of character for our country to learn from Haitians. President Preval 

and his administration have proven in their prequake efforts the will of Haiti to 

overcome its devastating legacy. But to demand of them, or encourage their demand 

of a fractured society’s independence prematurely, will be murder by another name. 

Issues of equity in distribution of aid are a fine aspiration, but when the emergency 

room has got a line out the door and the hospital pharmaceutical stockpile has not 

been inventoried, we have to find a way to treat patients while the counting is done 

and not leave them at the door to die on the street. 

I am, and I believe I speak for all responsible aid workers, in full support of parallel planning in reconstruction and the nurturing of an independent peoples self 

reliance. But as we punish those who are lazy, punish those who are corrupt, so 

shall we kill the innocent and the willful. In an emergency, donors offer money and 

expect it to be spent helping people. I hope we are here today to encourage just that. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you, Mr. Penn. 

Mr. Schneider. 

STATEMENT OF MARK SCHNEIDER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, 

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator 

Corker. 

Let me express my appreciation, as others, for the bipartisan 

support for Haiti reflected in this hearing and in the Kerry-Corker 

legislation that many of you have supported. Both reflect what is 

absolutely essential, as we’ve heard today; that is, a long-term 

43 

commitment to Haiti’s recovery, sustainable rebuilding, and refounding. 

And I use that—the term ‘‘refounding’’—yesterday, in fact, was 

Haiti’s Independence Day, the Flag Day in Haiti. President Preval 

went to Arcahaie and spoke, and called for unity among all the political forces in the country; and, in fact, Haiti’s future depends on 

that kind of political consensus if it’s going to move forward. 

In the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in the history of 

the hemisphere, the lives and futures of more than a million men, 

women, and children, that are still displaced in spontaneous and 

collective shelters, remain uncertain and extremely fragile. Tropical 

storms are anticipated almost every day, and an approaching hurricane season, the physical threats of mudslides and flooding, and 

the fear of another quake are frightening realities for all Haitians. 

And the reality is that, while some 7,200 of the most vulnerable 

have been moved to sturdier sites, others have not, and many, 

many more should be classified as most vulnerable. 

There are also several hundred thousand in what are called highrisk camps, where serious health risks currently exist. There’s an 

urgent need, in terms of what needs to be done immediately. 

There’s an urgent need for a final decision on the resettlement 

strategy, jointly, of the Government of Haiti, with OCHA—that is, 

with the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs of the United 

Nations—the United States, and others, and the funds identified to 

begin, rapidly, to execute that strategy. 

I returned from Haiti last Thursday, after 4 days in Port-auPrince; it’s my second visit there since January. As many of you 

know, I’ve made many visits to Haiti over the course of the last 

past several decades. 

Crisis Group always emphasizes security, governance, and political stability. And that was the focus of my visit, so that’s what I 

want to speak to you about today. Security starts with the U.N. 

peacekeeping forces of MINUSTAH. It needs to be bolstered with 

more U.N. police and more authority. Without it there is, in fact, 

going to be chaos. 

MINUSTAH has to be strengthened, particularly with respect to 

the police forces among it, and it needs to have the authority to 

reach out and to essentially help the Haitian National Police 

assure protection in the camps, particularly for vulnerable women 

and children. 

At the same time—and this goes to the questions that you 

heard—there’s an emergency and there’s also a longer term effort 

to rebuild some kind of state structure. The United States and the 

U.N. need to renew the priority for strengthening the Haitian 

National Police—the HNP—complete the vetting of its force, and 

restart training. Until last Monday, that was not possible, because 

the Haitian parliamentarians were in the police academy after the 

Parliament building had collapsed. They’re now leaving. And now’s 

the time to begin retraining the police force. 

As you know, some 4,000 prisoners escaped under unclear circumstances from the national penitentiary on the day of the quake, 

including hundreds of gang members and serious criminals. According to the HNP, they’ve recaptured some 567, a few others were 

killed, and the prison population is back to 800. But, there’s no 

44 

question, none at all, that gang members are trying to sink their 

roots into their old or new communities in Martissant, Bel-Air, as 

well as Cite Soleil. And that’s why we see kidnappings going up. 

The rising number of kidnappings and sexual assaults, particularly 

in the camps, require remedial action. 

I walked, at night with U.N. police, through one of those camps 

at the Ancien airport, the old military airport runway. There are 

now 17,000 families on that runway, more than 80,000 people. 

They live in tent slums transplanted from nearby Cite Soleil and 

elsewhere. There’s 138 of these kinds of encampments in Haiti. 

Close to 60 percent function without a camp management agency. 

In too many, I saw male and female latrines and showers side by 

side, and that virtually invites sexual assault. There have been too 

many reports already of rapes. And while there were rapes and 

sexual violence previously, before the quake, that does not excuse 

the current violence, especially since several of the camps are 

under international management. Due diligence is required to 

make it less likely for those unacceptable assaults to take place. 

On governance, let me just mention two critical issues you’ve 

been discussing this morning. 

The reconstruction program approved by Haiti’s Government— 

and this, to some degree, I think Senator Corker responds to your 

question about the vision—this is the plan that was prepared and 

presented by the Haitian Government to the Donors Conference. It 

was put together by the Haitian Government, in interaction with 

international experts, including the diaspora. And that essentially 

sets out a series of principles and goals, and their priorities, including for financing. And some of them are education, particularly expanding public education, agriculture, environment, governance, 

etc. 

Right now, the reality is that things have not been moving as 

fast as they need to. Pledges were made of $5.2 billion over the 

next 18 months, $10 billion over the next decade, and it’s essential 

that these begin to be implemented so that there’s both more visible and real physical and spiritual renewal in Haiti. 

The Interim Reconstruction Commission that was part of that 

proposal has yet to reach agreement on who will be the executive 

director, who will staff it, and how it will build new capacity in 

Haiti’s ministries, because it has to do two things. It has to move 

projects that deal with the problems of reconstruction, and it also 

has to begin to help build a Haitian state that can function. 

And here, let me just mention one thing with respect to what 

Andrew said. He’s right about the history of Haiti the past couple 

of decades, in terms of dysfunctional state. But, over the last couple 

of years, Haiti had begun to move forward. That really needs to be 

recognized—it fell back horrendously with the earthquake, but now 

we have to ensure that the program of reconstruction deals both 

with immediate helping the people of Haiti, but also building a 

functioning government. 

Second, governance is crucial. You have to have a government for 

reconstruction to succeed. You don’t have a legislature right now. 

One-third of the Senate and the entire lower House terms ended 

last Monday. Between now and next year, you have got to go 

45 

through general elections and move as quickly as possible in that 

direction. 

President Preval, when I was there, announced that he was committed to the November 28th constitutional date for elections. The 

U.N., the OAS, have now issued a technical report that says it’s 

possible. But, things have to happen now. And that means, essentially, that the money needs to be made available to permit individuals after the quake to obtain new identify cards, voter registration, identifying the places where people will vote, training the 

workers. You know the requirements. That has to begin. And to 

lessen tensions, the government has to reach out to the opposition 

and begin to form some kind of consensus about how to move 

forward. 

Finally, on stability. It’s based really on whether or not the rule 

of law begins to be seen in Haiti, whether you’re going to see actions by the police to deal with crime, whether the U.N., together 

with Haiti, can move that forward, and whether reconstruction can 

begin to move forward more quickly. 

Most worrying is the possibility for serious social unrest. Political 

movements are already beginning to take advantage of the very 

real hardships, frustrations, and anxieties endured by more than a 

million Haitians. We’ve seen many demonstrations now, and they 

are becoming more regular. 

Now, what can be done? You mentioned things that have already—in process here in the Congress—— 

Senator CASEY. Mr. Schneider, will you—we need you to wrap 

up. 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. OK. I just—one, Congress has to pass the emergency supplemental. Every day it’s delayed means you can’t do 

things in Haiti. Two, there needs to be a comprehensive strategy 

against sexual violence, put together by MINUSTAH, in Haiti. 

Three, the technical financial support for elections has to move forward. And, finally, in terms of long-term U.S. support, it has to 

focus on the area of governance and the rule of law: police, justice, 

prisons. Other donors don’t like to get into this area. Without it, 

there’s not going to be security. Without security, there’s not going 

to be investment. Without investment, there’s not going to be jobs 

and growth in Haiti. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schneider follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARK L. SCHNEIDER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, 

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and the ranking member and the committee 

as a whole for continuing its bipartisan support for a long-term commitment by the 

United States to Haiti’s recovery, sustainable rebuilding and ‘‘refounding.’’ 

There are more than 1 million Haitians in shelters—men, women, and children. 

In the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in the history of the hemisphere, 

their lives and futures remain extremely fragile. With tropical storms anticipated 

and an approaching hurricane season, the physical threats facing the people in 

1,282 spontaneous camps and collective centers in 13 municipalities including the 

capital, Port-au-Prince, are real. While the most vulnerable are being moved, not 

all have been and others who have not been classified as ‘‘most vulnerable’’ probably 

should be. 

There is an urgent need for decisions on resettlement strategy by the Government 

of Haiti with OCHA, MINUSTAH, the United States and others and the funds identified to begin rapidly to execute that strategy. 

46 

I returned from Haiti last Thursday night after 4 days on the ground in Port-auPrince. It was my second visit there since January 12. As you know the Crisis 

Group has been analyzing the factors driving conflict in Haiti since 2004. Our focus 

always emphasizes security, governance, and the underlying political stability of the 

country. Our last report on March 31, the same day as the U.N. Donor Conference, 

underscored that stability depended on a reconstruction program based on broad political and social consensus and Haitian ownership, a transparent and accountable 

multidonor funding mechanism and an efficient Haitian Government-led implementing structure that could move rapidly enough to instill confidence in Haitians 

and domestic and foreign investors and that answered the questions of democratic 

governance and the rule of law, as a matter of urgency. Some of those questions 

have been partially answered, others still require both decisions and action. 

We pointed out in our March 31 report, ‘‘Haiti: Stabilisation and Reconstruction 

after the Quake,’’ that most of Haiti’s parliamentarians’ terms were about to expire, 

which they did, on May 10. President Preval is in his final year in office as are the 

country’s mayors and the obstacles standing in the way of credible elections have 

to be overcome. We said then that the continuing presence of the U.N. peacekeeping 

force was essential both to support the Haitian National Police (HNP) in making 

Haiti safer and to protect civilians, particularly women and children within IDP 

camps, where a now even weaker HNP is unable to do so. After my visit there this 

past week, it is clear that all of those recommendations remain valid. There has 

been some progress in many arenas—just not enough and not fast enough. 

The Congress has to move in one key area. The emergency supplemental proposal 

for $2.8 billion for Haiti reconstruction was submitted by the Obama administration 

on 24 March. We urged that it be submitted even earlier but compared to past timeframes it was among the speediest after natural disasters, as was the March 31 

Donor Conference. The supplemental has not yet reached the floor in either House. 

In general I know there is strong congressional support for this measure and it 

must be passed soon. Failure to have the authority to spend those resources will 

increasingly bind the hands of project and program managers in USAID, the State 

Department and Treasury—and send the wrong message to other donors. 

In assessing the current situation, we can look first the progress: The Donor Conference—which took place far more quickly than the response to the 2008 hurricanes—was a success and $5.2 billion was pledged for the first 18 months to carry 

out the Action Plan for National Recovery and Development of Haiti (PARDN), proposed by the Haitian Government with the aid of international experts, as part of 

its $10 billion decade-long recovery plan. It included a multidonor trust fund, and 

a hybrid Haiti/international Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC) with 

parallel auditing, decentralization, regional development hubs and a call for vast investment in human and physical infrastructure as well as encouraging state institution-building. 

President Preval and PM Bellerive—despite the political risk involved—won parliamentary approval for the IHRC. Last Monday Preval also cochaired a meeting on 

elections with the U.N. SRSG and specifically supported holding parliamentary and 

Presidential elections according to the Constitution on November 28. Parliament 

also took action to avoid any jerry-rigged transitional government next year if there 

is unavoidable delay of a few days in the election calendar. Preval recently endorsed 

in writing the findings of U.N. and OAS assessment teams and announced on the 

radio that the election would be scheduled for 28 November, tasking the provincial 

electoral council and the donors to meet that deadline. 

Also positive is the news that former Prime Minister Marc Bazin has gathered 

another five former Prime Ministers representing different ideologies in a Forum of 

Former Prime Ministers. They have stated their willingness to serve as ‘‘senior 

statesmen’’ offering independent advice and counsel to the government. Preval has 

indicated a willingness to engage with them for that purpose. 

During my previous visit to Haiti in March there was no agreement on where to 

move the must vulnerable people in the shelters and some victims were still waiting 

for tarps or tents. It now appears that most Haitians in need have received a tent 

or tarps—covering more than 1.5 million people. There are two functioning official 

government campsites, at Corail Cesselesse and Tabarre lssa, where with international support, tents, basic access to water and sanitation, food, security, and 

lights have been provided to some 7,200 individuals. There are the beginnings of 

a more robust HNP and U.N. Police presence around the camps. Haitian agriculture 

production is up, and the U.S. approval of new legislation that increases the window 

for Haitian textile imports also should also boost jobs in that industry and Haitian 

agriculture production is up. And about 100,000 or more Haitians are receiving cash 

for work on a 2-week revolving basis. 

47 

This progress would be seen as quite significant if the magnitude of the challenges were not so immense. 

Second, the challenges: Everything needs to move faster. Plans exist on paper but 

the decisions about alternatives remain unclear. Few of the implementing mechanisms are in place. Fifteen of the countries’ seventeen ministry buildings collapsed 

in the quake. Now the trailer, Quonset but and open air tents that house a small 

portion of ministry employees also serve as physical reminders of the devastation 

suffered by state institutions. 

• Security has been negatively affected by the escape of more than 4,000 prisoners from the national penitentiary, including some hundreds of gang members 

and serious criminals. According to the HNP, a total of 567 have been recaptured, and a few others killed and the prison population is now back up to 800. 

However, there is little question that the gang members are trying to sink their 

roots into their old or new impoverished communities in Martissant and Belair 

as well as Cite Soleil. There was also serious damage to the Haitian National 

Police infrastructure. Some 77 police officers were killed, another 253 suffered 

severe injuries, another several hundred have not returned for unknown reasons. The National Police headquarters and some 45 stations and substations 

collapsed or suffered major damage along with numerous police vehicles. The 

rising numbers of kidnappings and sexual assaults, particularly in the camps, 

requires urgent remedial action. Perhaps most worrying is the possibility for serious social unrest as political movements take advantage of the very real hardships, frustrations, and anxieties being endured by more than a million Haitians. Already demonstrations—some with a threat of violence—are taking 

place regularly in the capital and in a few other cities. All of these conditions 

could become aggravated in the event of floods and mudslides before emergency 

precautions can be taken. 

It is clear that within the MINUSTAH structure, additional HNP are needed 

to support security needs. It also is clear that the HNP has to be supported to 

restart its fledgling reform program, including enabling the 22nd police recruiting class to begin its training at the police school. It also should be supported 

in completing the vetting process and in carrying out post-quake investigations. • The 99 Members of the Haitian Chamber of Deputies and a third of their Senate ended their terms last Monday. The government consists of President 

Preval, his ministers and 19 Members of the Haitian Senate along with 140 

mayoral councils and other local officials. The planned February 28 parliamentary election was postponed. Nearly 40 percent of voting sites in the key departments had been destroyed in the quake and hundreds of thousands had lost 

their voting IDs, while others had fled to the country side. The Office of 

National Identification (ONI) had not updated the basic civil registry since 

2005. Since then, an unknown number of people turned 18—500,000 have died, 

including 230,000 deaths in the quake, which also prompted 600,000 to flee the 

capital—all of which has created conditions that would tax even a well-functioning civil and voting registration bureaucracy. The current CEP, even though 

it has yet to actually manage an election since it was only named after the 2009 

polls, had already been criticized by political opponents. A hard and fast path 

has to be blazed to get from here to Presidential and legislative elections in 

November so that a new government can take office on 7 February 2011. For 

the least contentious process, the government needs to pursue more consensus 

with the opposing political party elites and other opponents, including some renewal of the CEP and its mandate. Those steps would underscore President 

Preval’s commitment for November elections, a credible government in place 

next year, and political stability. It also will require immediate technical and 

financial support from the international community to every aspect of the process, moving quickly on the civil and voting registration process, political party 

support, widespread civic education, electoral observation and helping the CEP 

meet the major logistical challenges in the aftermath of the quake. • Further, the IHRC, for which the enabling decree was not issued until 5 May, 

is not in place. The position for IHRC executive director was just posted and 

will not be closed until June 30 and there have not been final decisions on who 

will staff that agency or how it will work with the Haitian ministries. Over its 

proposed 18-month operation, the IHRC needs not only to be flexible, lean, and 

move projects faster than ever before, transparently and efficiently. It also has 

to be structured and managed so that it serves as a temporary building block 

to long-term strengthening of Haiti’s Government capacity—both in Port-auPrince and around the island. Ideally ministry planning and policy units and 

perhaps the key initial implementers would be seconded to the IHRC to work 

side by side with international experts all of whom would return to their minVerDate Nov 24 2008 18:25 Dec 17, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\HEARING FILES\2010 ISSUE HEARINGS TO PREPARE FOR PRINTING\ISSUE HEARIN
48 

isterial homes when this critical 18-month initial phase is complete. The IHRC 

also must reach out into the departments at least for reporting purposes if the 

decentralization process is going to be real. • The government is still quite far away from filling the budget gap by 30 September 2010, Initial evaluations in March by the government, IMF, and other 

partners showed a budget gap of $350 million. Revenue collection has been better than expected and the economy has been gradually rebounding, particularly 

in areas such as telecommunications, and there have been some reductions in 

spending plans, which have helped to reduce the gap to $270 million. Budget 

support commitments currently total some $95 million to date, which leaves a 

gap of some $175 million. There is further promised funding of $30 million in 

July from the World Bank. The United States could make a very strong statement of support for rebuilding Haiti’s Government and meeting critical needs 

if it were to contribute a significant amount to fill that budget gap—with appropriate safeguards. One way would be to agree with the Haitian Government 

that a portion of that support would cover the costs of paying police salaries, 

including those of the incoming 22nd police recruitment class, and perhaps 

teachers and health professionals as well. • The middle class—from teachers to small business owners to government employees—who have lost their homes may have been lost in the cracks until now. 

However, there is not yet a clear sense of how the recovery process will help 

these men and women jump-start new enterprises and cover their expenses. • Meanwhile, the transitional camps are not fully in place. Some 7,300 designated 

‘‘most vulnerable’’ have been moved to Tabarre Issa and Conrail but that definition probably is too narrow. If the rains arrived in force this week, there would 

likely be others who would not only be inundated but at risk of being washed 

away. The numbers of the displaced change so frequently that it is impossible 

to substantiate a full registry of the displaced. The numbers have grown from 

1.3 to 1.5 and most recently 1.7 million. • Let me briefly describe some of the conditions in the camps we drove by and 

the several we walked through, including on night patrol with U.N. police. 

There is a glaring distinction between the extremely well-organized transitional 

shelter area where some of the most vulnerable have been moved and most of 

the other camps. In the new government/U.N. transitional space at Tabarre 

Issa, there is space between the rows of tents, a police presence and NGOs 

working to make life seem more normal. There was even including a group that 

films a soap opera in the camps during the day and screens it at night to the 

camp dwellers. On the other hand, there are also hundreds of disorganized, 

massive camps in Port-au-Prince where make-shift canvass and tarp tent-like 

shelters virtually sit on top of one another, such as the ‘‘Ancien Ae ́roport 

Militaire,’’ which I visited last week, and which hosts as many as 16,732 households, according to the shelter cluster campsite registry. On a 5-per-household 

basis, this translates into 83,660 persons, over 80 percent of the population of 

some of Haiti’s Caribbean neighbors, in transplanted tent slums from nearby 

Cite Soleil and elsewhere. Another example is the Champs de Mars campsite, 

just outside the National Palace, where some 50,000 individuals of 10,312 

households now live. A total of 138 of these camps are found in the capital, 

Port-au-Prince, and of these close to 60 percent (79) function without a camp 

management agency. 

• In too many, male and female latrines and showers set up side by side virtually 

invite sexual violence. There have been too many reports of rapes in camps 

since January. Yes, there were rapes and sexual violence in the nearby urban 

slums of Cite Soleil and other areas before the quake, but this does not excuse 

the current violence, especially since several of these camps are under international management. Due diligence is required to make it less likely for those 

unacceptable assaults to take place. 

• In our last report, Crisis Group urged in our last report, following my trip to 

Haiti in March, that the U.N. Police and the HNP agree on a standard set of 

joint walking patrols through the camps and that a fixed joint police presence 

be established in the larger camps. The United States has obtained 38 tents and 

other facilities for that purpose. It is now 4 months after the quake and the 

tents have not yet been installed. And only now are the joint walking patrols 

beginning, but not everywhere and not on a schedule that permits checking and 

gives the residents a sense of security. HNP and U.N. Police say they agree it 

needs to be done but full implementation remains to be seen. This month’s 

scheduled arrival of a contingent of 110 female police officers from Bangladesh 

can significantly boost MINUSTAH efforts to support the Haitian National 

Police and the relief agencies managing the camps in that regard. 

49 

Finally, I would urge the committee to encourage the administration to seek several measures to strengthen the MINUSTAH peacekeeping effort in an upcoming 

Security Council resolution: 

1. Strengthen MINUSTAH’s mandate by giving it primary responsibility for setting priorities with respect to integration of other U.N. agencies in the U.N. country 

team in order to better carry out its peacekeeping mandate. An early example would 

be to establish an integrated country team approach to the problem of sexual violence in the camps, coordinating available resources of UNDP, UNFPA, UNIFEM, 

UNHCR, UNICEF and OCHA. 

2. Ensure that the MINUSTAH mandate enables UNPOL on behalf and in close 

consultation with the HNP to guarantee security in the camps, particularly with respect to vulnerable women and children, and to support the resettlement of those 

at risk. 

3. Extend the mission’s mandate for 2 years. 

4. Direct that MINUSTAH have available all necessary expert personnel to fulfill 

the election support role request by the Government of Haiti. 

5. Support the Secretary General’s call for an increase in the size of UNPOL during this critical period and seek additional Haitian diaspora with police experience 

to bolster its capacity. 

Helping Haiti achieve its goal of recovery, reconstruction, and refounding will 

place enormous demands on the United States, the United Nation, the OAS and 

other members of the international community. Fulfilling those demands will enable 

Haiti to move past this disaster. Nothing less is acceptable. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you very much. 

We’re honored to be joined by our chairman, Chairman Kerry, 

and we’re grateful that he organized this hearing. 

Chairman Kerry. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. KERRY, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, Senator Casey, thank you for chairing the 

hearing. Senator Corker, thanks for being part of this effort. 

And I apologize that I wasn’t able to be here, but I was chairing 

a classified briefing in another part of the Capitol. 

Let me thank both panels for coming here today. I understand 

there was a productive discussion with Ambassador Ken Merten 

and the Haiti response coordinator, Chris Milligan, of USAID. And 

we’re grateful for their efforts since January 12. 

Also, I am delighted to be here with my constituent and former 

USAID Director, Andrew Natsios, who brings a lot of experience to 

these kinds of efforts. And he’s been on the front lines of these 

things for a long time. 

Mark Schneider, thank you for your stewardship of the Peace 

Corps, and we appreciate your comments just now, and your help 

and observations here. 

And, Sean Penn, whose stewardship of the Jenkins/Penn Haitian 

Relief Organization has seen him now spend 4 months on the 

ground, managing a camp for 50,000 displaced Haitians in 

Petionville. And we thank you very much for that commitment and 

for the knowledge that you’re sharing with us and bringing to us 

about this challenge. 

All of us understand that—I think we all understand—that 

Haiti—the world has certainly witnessed Haiti suffer perhaps the 

worst disaster that our hemisphere has ever seen. And while we 

don’t see the CNN reports on the daily basis that we did previously, and there isn’t the media crisis of urgency the public is 

witnessing on a daily basis, the truth is that 4 months later the 

50 

tragedy is still unfolding. And the challenge for people on the 

ground remains enormous. 

Many Haitians today are living in desperate and dangerous conditions, and, in many ways, our work in Haiti is just beginning, 

which is the purpose of this hearing and the importance of the legislation that we’ve just introduced. 

It’s a reality that, even before the earthquake, Haiti’s challenges 

were profound. But, now 1.3 million Haitians have lost their 

homes, and, even as we hold this hearing today, in the days ahead, 

the rains are pouring down, dripping through temporary nylon 

tarps, and turning the ground to mud. Still, Haiti’s largest port, 

many of its roads, and its water and electricity infrastructure are 

essentially destroyed. And the serious health and environmental 

challenges include mudslides, untreated sewage, a medical system 

that, on its best days, struggles to care with the basics of care. 

Shockingly—and this is one of the things that I’m most concerned about; we’ve had some internal discussions about it here— 

4,000 schools were flattened. That risks presenting all of us with 

a lost generation of young Haitians. For many of them, their education ended with the earthquake, and there are efforts, obviously, 

to try to restore that; some going back to the schools that they 

have, some, as Sean Penn shared with me earlier—there are about 

300 kids in his camp, for instance, who are getting schooling in 

their school. 

But, I think one of the greatest tasks ahead of us is to make certain that every kid in Haiti is in some kind of school, now, every 

day. And I can’t think of any task more important, beyond, obviously, the basics of day-to-day subsistence, that could help to build 

the longer term future of Haiti. 

I would comment, Mr. Chairman, that I think that the—the 

world has responded to Haiti, at least in the initial days, with a 

relatively impressive set of promises and of immediate engagement. 

Our challenge now is to maintain that sense of urgency. In the 

hours to sort of translate—what were hours and days of rescue 

efforts have to now translate into months and years, even, of a sustained reconstruction. 

Senator Corker has joined with Senator Durbin and Senator 

Cardin and I to introduce legislation which will make a $3.5 billion 

commitment to rebuild Haiti over the next 5 years. And during the 

funding of those 5 years, we want to ensure that our efforts are 

sustained, and we want to empower our aid agencies to engage in 

effective planning. And that’s one of the most important things, I 

think, here. 

We try to establish a framework within which we can have democratic and competent governance, with adequate security, economic 

growth, and environmentally sustainable programs, particularly 

engaging women and children. And it tasks—our legislation tasks 

USAID with developing a comprehensive rebuilding and development strategy, and establishes a senior Haiti policy coordinator 

who will be responsible for advising and coordinating the United 

States policy in Haiti. 

Clearly, the people of Haiti need to be empowered and engaged 

in this effort as we go forward. Mark referred to the security challenge, and that is real, but also we’ve got to ensure that democracy 

51 

does not become another casualty of the earthquake. And so, I 

endorse the notion that Haiti can, and it should, hold elections in 

November, as planned, and that we must do everything possible to 

guarantee that that can happen seamlessly. 

So, finally, I would just say that I think the world is ready to 

help, but I’m not sure the world has been presented with the kind 

of concentrated leadership and focus that is going to be necessary 

to coordinate the massive rebuilding, the massive clearing and then 

rebuilding, that is going to be imperative here. Over 100 countries have pledged $15 billion, at the Donors Conference that was held in April, but we have yet to make certain 

that there is going to be the delivery system for those funds, and 

the mechanism which is going to maximize the coordinated development necessary so that Haiti can absorb the aid that is standing 

at the ready. And so, we look forward to listening further to the 

witnesses here today as to how that coordinated effort can take 

place, and what is missing today, so that we don’t fall flat on our 

own words. There have been a lot of speeches given about how this 

event, given all the past challenges Haiti has faced, has to become 

sort of the principal organizing moment, if you will, for Haiti not 

to be always in crisis, but to build that sustainable future. 

So, I think the word ‘‘sustainable’’ is a critical one as we think 

about the testimony of our witnesses. 

Thank you very much, Senator Casey. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And we’re grateful for 

your leadership on these and so many other issues. 

I wanted to start our questioning with a focus on the IDP—the 

camps, and the internally displaced persons across Haiti. 

I guess, Mr. Penn and Mr. Schneider, together, and Mr. Natsios, 

as well, but just in terms of the reality on the ground in those 

camps, if you had—and you did, in your testimony—just some of 

it by way of repetition—but, if you had to list the urgent, or most 

urgent, needs in those camps, in terms of the approach of the international community and the Haitian Government, and, by extension, what we can do, in the United States. 

Mr. PENN. If I can make just the one correction, for the record, 

the what was formerly Jenkins/Penn Haitian Relief Organization is 

simply J/P Haitian Relief Organization. And to save everyone time 

today, what we do is on our www.jphro.org site. 

Senator CASEY. OK. 

Mr. PENN. So, serving in camp management at the Petionville 

camp, we originally were designated as the No. 1, topographically, 

dangerous camp in the city. And that was for flood and mudslide 

mitigations. So, the designations to date have been that. That’s the 

high risk that we have relocated on the basis of. So, once the 

mitigations were complete—we originally had 32,000 people at 

high risk; there was an assessment done by the Army Corps of 

Engineers and the Navy Seabees—at that time, 750,000 persons, 

roughly, would have to be moved out of the camp to allow for the 

mitigations that would put those people out of risk, the 32 among 

the 60,000 in camp. Later, there was a advancement of the mitigation program that led to what was a minimized number, of approximately 1,200 families, or 5,000 people. We initiated what then was 

the first relocation program, on that basis. 

52 

In terms of equity, and understanding that other camps were in 

the same sort of risk in—these zones of other camps throughout 

the city and the country—we had to stand down on relocation. And 

that brings us back to the state of things in a camp. 

The state of things in the camp, as has been said, is, these are 

not tents, they’re tarp shelters. They have ground, with no cover 

on them, in most cases. And by this time, in virtually every one of 

these camps, the soil is contaminated with fecal matter that is 

going to create these diseases, particularly raising when the rain 

comes. 

In many camps, depending upon which area of town you’re looking at, you have gang infiltration. That is on the rise. Guns are 

coming up from out of rubble and other places. People are coming 

out of a state of shock. And the unified spirit is breaking up a little 

bit into a more desperate spirit, and people are becoming much 

more increasingly vulnerable. 

Most of the camps that we’re talking about, in a city that has 

almost no light, fall into absolute darkness, so you can imagine 

your children walking around in compressed tent-to-tent construction, with alleys about this wide, and a culture of tens of thousands 

of them roaming around at night, totally vulnerable to predatory 

behavior, as well as disease, as well as fire, as well as problems 

of a totally acceptable level—by ‘‘acceptable,’’ I’m talking about 

what seems to be the case in Haiti—acceptable level of massive 

malnutrition, as opposed to starvation. And so, this is a situation 

we’re in now. 

And these—it should be understood, these tent camps did not 

exist in Haiti prequake. So, when people look at these things on 

the news, understand that these hundreds of thousands of people 

throughout this city—and 1.8 million, I believe it is, displaced 

throughout—are in a brand new setting of spontaneous camps, 

where we have then come, as NGOs and the other international 

agencies, and tried to put some kind of services into the middle of 

this. In most cases, lighting is not part of that. In most cases, generators are not there for lights that are not there to illuminate the 

areas near, for example, latrines and so on. 

So, when we talk about camp management—and I’ll summarize 

this now—we’re talking about a situation where IOM has been 

largely depended upon to recruit those people who would be camp 

managers. There are charitable agencies, there are NGOs that are 

on the ground, with enormous funds, and they have to be counted 

on to recruit those camp managers, who will advocate, camp by 

camp, and not just ghost-advocate by supplying a simple service, as 

water, and then coming back every few days to fill a bladder, but 

to actually take accountability for the actions of all NGO actors 

necessary to the services on a humanitarian-standard basis while 

there is an aggressive effort to relocate people to either planned 

sites, which is going to be continued as a—continue to be necessary 

for this—at this time, as well as temporary—and, ultimately, permanent—shelters, and in the greenhouse system. 

Senator CASEY. I only have a little—about a minute and a half 

left for this round, but—— 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Just very quickly. 

Senator CASEY [continuing]. Mr. Schneider. Sure. 

53 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. It seems to me, the most important thing to do 

immediately, which can be done immediately, is to direct that there 

be joint walking patrols by the United Nations police and the 

Haitian National Police in the major camps, day and night, on a 

regular basis, and hold them accountable to do it. That’s No. 1. 

No. 2, of the 128 or so camps, there are about 19 of them that 

are way over 10,000. In one of the camps I visited, there were 

80,000 people. The Champs de Mars camp holds somewhere around 

47,000. And the Petionville golf club is in the same neighborhood. 

And the issue is, it seems to me, that in those camps, you need to 

have fixed sites where police are available. The United States 

finally, now, has double tents, where they’re going to give them to 

the U.N. and IOM to place in these camps. That has to be done. 

You have to have fixed places where people can go to complain and 

where they know that there are police there, which will reduce, 

some degree, the level of risk. 

And the second is that you have to make a decision on resettlement strategy, about what you’re going to do with these people 

over time. It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s not going to happen for—unfortunately, for a long period of time. But, you need to 

make the decision about—this is what you’re going to do for each 

category of displaced persons. 

You’ve now got three government-run secondary camps where 

you’re going to take the ones most at risk. You have to ensure that 

that begins to be expanded on a much more rapid basis. Only 7,200 

people have been moved. Before the rains and the hurricanes come, 

you need to move all of those who are most at risk, perhaps 20,000 

or so. 

At the same time, you have to provide the people with the vouchers and the assistance, if they do have houses marked with green 

paint as safe or able to be repaired, to return there. You need to 

provide them with those vouchers and actually have them go back 

and start the repair process. 

But, the decision has to be made about the resettlement strategy 

now. 

Senator CASEY. Senator Corker. 

Senator CORKER. I want to thank all of you for your testimony— 

I think it’s been outstanding—and certainly the personal commitment to the people of Haiti. 

Mr. Schneider just gave a list of those immediate things that he 

believes ought to happen. I wonder, Mr. Penn, if you want to add 

to that or give a different perspective as to if you, yourself, were 

the person dealing, ultimately, with the immediate needs of people 

in Haiti. What are those things that you think are possible to occur 

today, that are not happening, and could, with just a change of emphasis? 

Mr. PENN. Well, I would second what Mr. Schneider said, in 

terms of patrol. The body that does that patrol—I can tell that you 

that, at the current time, in terms of embedded MINUSTAH troops 

in areas of certain campsites, and so on, there’s not something so 

simple as the demand that they have a translator with them. In 

one case, a 13-year-old girl was raped in a camp not 50 yards from 

the MINUSTAH site, and they did not pursue any kind of investigation of it for the 8 hours it took before the morning came and 

54 

they hired a translator for $5 a day. So, those kinds of things, I 

think, can—are pretty simple to solve, but there has to be the motivation to do it. 

In terms of the general presence of MINUSTAH, I think a softer 

posture, one more represented by the—in the way that the United 

States military was, with the slung rifles and without a sort of 

storm trooper feel would be helpful, because there are very experienced and skilled troops within the Blue Helmet Corps, as well, but 

I think that there’s got to be a kind of reassessment of the way in 

which they posture themselves within Haiti now, especially now, as 

tensions are beginning to rise. And I think that it’s a moment to 

be very aggressive, in terms of policy, in terms of getting in there 

and saying, ‘‘We’ve got to capture this moment of general civility 

before it goes,’’ and offer something to it. So, I would say, more 

important than a kind of a storm trooper mentality would be the 

offering of translators so that you could take care of people as the 

smaller issues and as the tragedies on a more individual basis 

occur. 

Lighting, expansion of camps. When we talk about lands available—and I think we’ve all seen this—you’re talking about big, flat 

areas, which have been determined to be out of flood zones, that 

just take a few more bulldozers and a bit more gravel to expand 

these sites to take in thousands more families. 

And another thing is that, when a lot of fingers were pointed at 

the Government of Haiti for not giving the lands in time, as the 

organization managing the camp from which these people were 

being relocated to receivership at Corail, the services were not 

available once that land was processed. So, when we were able to— 

for example, to put eight serials a day into the buses and cargo 

trucks to move these people to a safe place from a dangerous place, 

which was all that the intention was, we were told, each day, ‘‘Hold 

off, send less. We don’t have the tents. We don’t have enough bladders. We don’t have enough latrines. We don’t have enough security. We don’t have enough lights.’’ Well, those were the things that 

both the government, the international aid communities, and the 

private sector had given us all a sense that were present. And still 

today, whatever’s in warehouses, the coordinated effort is still 

largely dysfunctional. 

And so, it should not be such a—if there—if it is decisive and 

bold, as has been the—those tragedies that took place on—when 

Lieutenant General Keane was present with a larger amount of 

U.S. troops, that clear and decisive strategy is what led to the beginning of what we have. Now it has to continue. And when it continues into the neighborhoods—for example, those inspected 

houses, by UNOPS and the Minister of Public Works and Transportation, that have been inspected and are safe from the—with no 

damage from this earthquake, you still, again, are going to have 

the issue of, ‘‘Do we have the capability, the capacity of services as 

NGOs and others come in, to serve those areas for relocation?’’ 

Senator CORKER. So, you’re no shrinking violet. 

Mr. PENN. I’m sorry? 

Senator CORKER. So, you’re no shrinking violet. So, what is it 

that you would make happen, as far as the ability to get the things 

out of the warehouses, on the ground? I mean, what is the one 

55 

thing that you, as a person who’s witnessed this, who’s been on the 

ground—I mean, what are—what is it we can do to change the dynamic of these things not occurring in a timely basis when the resources, it sounds like, possibly exist in various area of Haiti 

today? 

Mr. PENN. Well, I think one of the things is to leave it to those 

agencies that are able—those agencies and organizations that are 

immediately able to act with those things, and also to start changing the conversation related to equity and distribution of aid. 

What happens here is, you’ll have an incomplete package of aid, 

something that will not ultimately be sustainable for the families 

that are given it, and that then, once that is distributed, you 

don’t—you—when you try to enhance it to bring it up to something 

that will actually allow them a life forward, then people will tell 

you, in the agencies and in the government, ‘‘Well, as long as we 

can’t get that to everybody, that’s too much,’’ and you bring it down 

to an incomplete. So, what you’re doing is, you’re leaving one incomplete project as you move on to the next incomplete project. 

This is certainly true in the health care area, where we don’t 

have—when there’s, you know, advertisements of great immunization campaigns. Well, it’s just simply not true. There is no great 

immunization campaign. So, what it comes down to is that I think 

that all agencies, all charitable organizations can declare, on a single Web site, what’s available, in terms of tents, tarps, temporary 

structures, heavy equipment, all of those things, and then those 

organizations that are able to, with the cooperation of the Government of Haiti, establish some legal means by which they can relocate people, whether that’s on a sunset basis or on a permanent 

basis, with an assistance package that’s definable and sustainable, 

as well, so that those organizations can be, in effect, deputized to 

go forward and make that happen. 

Senator CORKER. I notice my time is up. And, Mr. Natsios, 

there’s a lot of things, longer term—obviously, the immediate, with 

the season coming up, these obviously were more pertinent questions today. I do look forward to talking to you about the tension 

that you relayed regarding the governance issues and our desire to 

actually move beyond the way things have been in Haiti for years. 

So, I look forward to talking to you later. 

I thank you all for your testimony. 

And, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Chairman, for having this committee hearing. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you, Senator Corker. 

Chairman Kerry. 

The CHAIRMAN [presiding]. Thank you. 

Mr. Natsios, I was reading your testimony, which I was not able 

to be here for. Obviously, you’re telling it pretty bluntly, and you 

ought to. But, I was struck by a number of things. 

One, you say, ‘‘The international business and capital markets do 

not invest money in failed states. And without such investment, job 

creation on the scale necessary to change the dynamics of Haitian 

society is impossible.’’ 

One question would be, How are we going to begin to create the 

transition necessary to get that kind of investment here? 

56 

But, you go on to point out that the historical evidence suggests 

that countries can make significant reforms following a catastrophic natural disaster on the scale Haiti has been through. But, 

you also point out that, historically, Haiti’s had a series of governments that have promised those, and nothing has happened, noting 

‘‘Baby Doc’’ Duvalier, ‘‘Papa Doc,’’ the Tonton Macoutes, the predatory corruption, et cetera. 

So, where do you begin, here? I’d like to get a sense of how we 

take advantage of this moment to create the order out of chaos that 

has been the sort of political structure and some of the humanitarian situation in Haiti. 

Ambassador NATSIOS. Well, the first thing I’d say, Senator, is 

that in any major disaster, including in the United States, a great 

opportunity exists to undertake reforms. I might add, from my ‘‘Big 

Dig’’ experience, that I had a few weeks where I could do almost 

anything, within the law, of course—fire people and so on. But, 

once those few weeks was over, the old political alliances suddenly 

took hold, and I started having constraints on what I could do. I 

learned my lesson the hard way as I should have fired more people. 

I fired a whole bunch of people the first week, but I waited too long 

to fire others. That’s true, to an exponential degree, in Haiti. It’s 

true in any country with a crisis. Because a huge number of civil 

servants, many of whom were phantom or had never reported for 

work even though they got salaries. The very structure of the Haitian Government itself have been destroyed. When the ministries 

are flattened, people have been killed in the ministries, and you 

could legitimately go back and say, ‘‘We are going to review all of 

the ministries to see who’s a real employee.’’ 

The CHAIRMAN. Who’s going to do that? 

Ambassador NATSIOS. Frankly—U.N.—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Where does the sovereignty issue—— 

Ambassador NATSIOS. Well, I think we need to say—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Fit into that? 

Ambassador NATSIOS.—The donors who are putting money into 

budget support, as the Brazilians just pledged, need to say to the 

Haitian Government, ‘‘This money is not being released until you 

do a census, in each ministry, of who is real and who is not; and 

then, if they’re real, are they part of their boss’s patronage network, or do they have some qualification for their job?’’ 

The second thing I would do, which is very important, is to create an incentive within the United States capital markets to invest, 

which would be a free trade agreement. Congress, in 2008, passed 

a law which established a partial free trade agreement for certain 

apparel items. It should be complete. And then, I think there would 

be a huge message to the business community, ‘‘This is where we 

want to start investing.’’ Because they did it before in the 1980s 

and 1990s, and then they all shifted their investments to Central 

America because of the political chaos and the sanctions regime. 

So, I think a free trade agreement would send a message that investment is wise. 

The third thing I would do can be taken from a mutual friend 

of ours, Michael Porter at the Harvard Business School, who is one 

of the leading experts in the world on microeconomic reform and 

competitiveness reform. We in USAID used his theories all over the 

57 

world to guide reforms, to improve the business climate, and to 

make it easier to start new businesses. 

My old staff at AID said, ‘‘Some of the things you tried, 

Andrew’’—you know, experiments that weren’t successful—‘‘this experiment with microeconomics was the biggest success you had on 

the economics side.’’ 

We already proved it worked in a number of countries. There’s 

no reason the same sort of thing can’t be done in Haiti; you go 

through all the regulations and laws and see whether they encourage business creation and job creation or they do the opposite. If 

they do the opposite, you issue executive orders, through the President, to change them. 

King Abdullah of Jordan, in 28 days, passed more reforms than 

any other head of state in the world so Jordan could join the World 

Trade Organization. He has an 8-percent growth rate now in Jordan; or the last time I saw, it was 8 percent. His country has also 

enjoyed the fastest accession to the WTO and massive levels of investment. The whole country is being industrialized now. AID 

drafted a lot of the rule changes that he signed. In fact, he ordered 

us to do it. He told us, ‘‘I want it done now.’’ 

If Preval is really interested in doing this, then he’s going to offend interests because there are monopolies in the economy that 

don’t want new businesses which might break their control of the 

economy. This is not just because someone wasn’t paying attention; 

there are monopolistic business interests in the country that do not 

want competition from new businesses coming into the country. 

And so, I think there are three things that could be done, soon, 

that would have a positive effect on the business climate, and it 

would begin to change the dynamics of the economy. 

The CHAIRMAN. Very helpful. Has anybody consulted with you in 

this process? 

Ambassador NATSIOS. AID staff often consult with me. 

The CHAIRMAN. Current staff. 

Ambassador NATSIOS. Yes. Current staff. I don’t think anybody 

in AID would disagree with anything I just said. Career staff. Dr. 

Shah wouldn’t either, I don’t think. He’s focused on economic 

reform, himself. 

The CHAIRMAN. I understand. 

But, do you believe that the structure is in place to accomplish 

what you just talked about? 

Ambassador NATSIOS. UNDP is capable because I believe they’re 

the ones managing the Multi-donor Trust Fund. I sit on their advisory board here in Washington. 

We must say to the U.N. or World Bank, ‘‘we will politically get 

behind you’’—because they can’t do this alone. There’s going to be 

huge resistance from the political bosses in Haiti to purge the lists. 

Because, if you purge the lists, you’re going to cause explosions. So, 

you have to get the Bank or U.N. agencies behind the reform, and 

all the donors and embassies to say, ‘‘if anybody starts causing 

trouble, we will be with you.’’ If you just tell them to do it, and you 

don’t get behind them, they’re going to have trouble doing it, politically, because of the resistance. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I think it’s a—let me just say—I’ve said 

this a couple of times, previously—it’s a prerequisite to getting this 

58 

done. Nobody’s in a mood to throw money into a hole, here. That’s 

not going to let anybody dig out of anything. We’ve been down this 

road, several times. And I think this is a unique moment for a reformation, with respect to the entire structure. 

Also, I think, if you’re going to attract the investment and get 

the diaspora to be investing and doing the things necessary, it’s 

going to be critical for them to see that there is that transformation. 

Do either of you, the other witnesses, want to add to that? 

Yes, Mark. 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Yes, just a couple of things. 

One is, with respect to, essentially, opening U.S. markets. That 

actually is something that Brazil’s Foreign Minister urged at the 

Donor Conference in New York, for the entire global community, 

that all restrictions on Haiti’s exports should be removed. I think 

that that makes a lot of sense at this point. 

Second, it’s not a totally negative situation with respect to investment. The Royal Caribbean Cruise Company has a $50 million 

investment program in the north. That’s continuing. They have 

announced that it’s going to move forward. Telecommunications 

investment, as well, are being made. 

The issues are whether you’re going to be able to ensure there’s 

security and a sense of the government dealing with some of the 

policy issues that then sustains investment. The legislation just 

passed by the Congress, in terms of opening up U.S. markets with 

respect to textiles, assumes that’s going to permit something on the 

order of 40 or 50,000 additional jobs in that apparel industry, 

which is quite positive. 

The one area where I say—that Andrew just mentioned—that I 

think is probably an area that has not had a sufficient focus, is on 

small business—not micro-enterprise. There’s movement there. 

There’s a lot of investment there. But, on small business, particularly those who lost their stores, their small operations, in the 

quake. There isn’t any credit operation there that’s available for 

them to restart. And a lot of them lost their homes, too. And that, 

I think, is an issue that needs more attention. 

The multilateral trust fund is going to be run by the World 

Bank, but UNDP is going to be a critical advisor in that. 

And I guess the only other thing that I would say is that budget 

support—yes, is needed, with the right kinds of conditions to provide assurance of transparency. The reason that Haiti has a deficit 

of about $270 million, is because of the quake. The last 2 years, 

they ran their macroeconomic policy framework fairly well. They 

got kudos from the World Bank, the IMF, the United States, et 

cetera. And they were able to get to the HIPC threshold point. 

Right now, though, they’ve got to pay their teachers, they’ve got to 

pay their police, and they don’t have the resources. 

So, I think that the fact that the supplemental includes provision 

for budget support is important. The United States can target that, 

and monitor it to, let’s say, pay for the salaries of the police and 

teachers that are working. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Natsios, let me pick up on two things, 

quickly. One, you said there has to be—to accomplish what we 

59 

need to in Haiti, you say there has to be a reduction of regulatory 

compliance burden on USAID. 

Ambassador NATSIOS. Yes, I did. 

The CHAIRMAN. That obviously pertains to us, among others. 

Speak to that, would you, just for a minute? 

Ambassador NATSIOS. I will. I’ve written an essay on this matter, 

which is actually three chapters of a book I’m writing on foreign 

aid, that’ll be published by the Center for Global Development. I 

will send it to your staff next week. 

But, Nancy Birdsall is publishing the essay. It’s going to upset 

some people. I didn’t understand this, to the extent that I was able 

to after I left office; I studied the General Accounting Office, the 

Inspector General’s Office, the Office of Management and the 

Budget, the Federal Acquisition Regulations, which are now 1,973 

pages long, and the oversight committees of Congress—principally, 

not foreign oversight but foreign policy oversight. The Federal 

Acquisition Regulations, you have no control over as that’s done by 

another committee in Congress. The Embassy Security Act, also 

not done by your committee. It’s draconian. They call the AID missions in many countries ‘‘prisons’’ because the AID officers can’t get 

out; neither can the Embassy diplomats because no other country 

in the world has these kinds of restrictions on it. 

The worst thing that can be done in these emergencies, which I 

urge you to avoid in this bill, is that OMB judges how AID is doing 

by how fast it disburses money, not by whether the policy’s the 

right one, the program is the right one. If you’re dealing with a 

failed state, everything moves in slow motion. If you have local 

input, it slows down even more. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Yes. 

Ambassador NATSIOS. And so, I would urge you to avoid using 

disbursement rates as the principal mechanism for judging 

whether AID is doing a good job. That’s done all over the world. 

It’s a stupid standard, in my opinion. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well said. We’ve got to spend some time together. 

I’m not going to ask you the next question now, because I want 

to—I’ll take it up—but, I want to talk to you about the institutional—institution-based model that you talk about. Because we 

have to get this right, and it deserves more time. And we’ll do it. 

Mr. Penn, last question before I have to run, here, in a moment. 

What do you need to get the—you need a decision, right, about 

moving people? There has to be some clarity with respect to where 

you’re going to go, in terms of getting people into the greenhouses 

and moving them appropriately. What’s it going to take to do that? 

What’s the restraint on that happening right now? Is that a decision that has to be made by President Preval? Does this involve the 

U.N.? Who has to make that decision? And how do we get that? 

Mr. PENN. It’s President Preval, and it’s an acceptance of the reality and the enforcement of it by the U.N., in the sense that most 

of the people in the IDP—in our camp are renters. They could be 

going back to a situation either where there is an exploitation of 

the landowners by people who had not resided there, or an exploitation by landlords of those who come back, and rent-gouging. 

There’s got to be some kind of a forgiveness of the last 4 months 

60 

of rent—people do not have the money to pay that—and assistance 

package that allows them to get by with some reasonable sense of 

a future-building and getting their legs, without the overbearing 

outsiders’ notion of what their job is to empower and create independence. Right now, to build the house, they’re going to have to 

have nails and a hammer. 

So—and we need that definition of what the proof of ownership 

is, some protection from rent-gouging, and then, from the international community, the clear resources to make communities, 

many, in which case, don’t have any access to water, many that 

will need security provisions, and so on, especially as it relates to 

putting in T-shelters on rubble-clearance sites, and, while those 

happen, not to have people who had not lived there before. 

So, it’s those clear definitions that allow us, as merely supplemental or supportive agencies of the Haitian people, to be able to 

go in and do what we have to do. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I’m getting a sense from each of you, in the 

course of this, the way these challenges are sort of sitting out 

there, that there is, in this crisis, an absence of a kind of focus 

point of decisionmaking, a kind of leadership structure and/or that 

we’re sort of trapped in a lot of bureaucratic tug and pull. And we 

have to break out of that. Is that a fair statement for each of you? 

I see you nodding. 

Mr. Penn, yes? 

Mr. PENN. Yes. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Natsios. 

Ambassador NATSIOS. Absolutely. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Schneider. 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. In part. I think that there’s a need in Haiti for 

that central coordination and also in the United States. 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. But, as of now—— 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. It doesn’t exist. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. It isn’t there. And so, we’re going to 

watch this thing, potentially, unravel, rather than move in the 

direction that we want it to. 

Senator Corker, do you have anything additional? 

Senator CORKER. No, I think—before you had arrived, I mean, 

I—you know, we’re in—we have—— 

The CHAIRMAN. That says it all. 

Senator CORKER [continuing]. We have this tension that exists, 

because this country is a sovereign country. And we should respect 

that. We have people on the ground, though, that are not being 

dealt with appropriately. And I know, even months ago, when this 

first began, in this committee, you know, we talked about that tension and how this was an opportunity, on one hand, to maybe 

break out of it. But, we’re still not doing that. And I think the frustrations that Mr. Penn is having on the ground, that Mr. Schneider 

has observed, they still exist. I don’t sense there’s a will—and I 

don’t even know what the right answer is. OK? I don’t know how 

you work around a ‘‘sovereign government,’’ with an ‘‘international 

community,’’ in—as our previous panel said, it’s a ‘‘cluster system,’’ 

which I think is well-defined—I don’t know how we do that. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I’m very frustrated, but I thank the witnesses for all that they’ve contributed, but I think that we still 

61 

have not, as a country, made some of the tough decisions that need 

to be made. 

I will say that Mr. Penn’s testimony pointed to the great work 

our military was doing. They’re now not there in the form they 

were before or in the presence they were before. But, I hope that 

those of us who care about this have some ability to make things 

happen in a different way than they are right now, and I don’t 

know what the—— 

The CHAIRMAN. I agree with you. 

Senator CORKER [continuing]. Answer is. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I think you—as I mentioned earlier, the 

sovereignty issue is an important one. But, I’ll tell you this, if countries are going to be putting $15 billion in there, and they’re going 

to be investing in the future, they have a right to expect that the 

sovereignty is going to be cooperative and there is a way to move 

forward. 

Mr. PENN. If I may, Mr. Chairman? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Mr. PENN. If there’s one thing that combines all the issues both 

of rebuilding and disaster relief, that really needs the immediate 

attention, without any bias towards any disagreements that may 

exist between the Government of Haiti and anyone else, the hospitals that do exist in the biggest city of the biggest natural disaster, with such a death toll, and with all of the emergencies that 

are coming our way, likely, with these rains, these hospitals have 

got to be staffed, have got to be supplied, and have got to be administrated to. 

The CHAIRMAN. I couldn’t agree more. As you know, my daughter 

spent a week down there as a doctor, working in the hospital, and 

came back with lots of those observations and notions. And it’s 

something we have to do. 

So, we have our work cut out for us. We’re enormously appreciative of you—each of you coming, sharing your thoughts today. 

It’s very, very helpful. There’s a lot on the table for us to digest, 

and I promise you, we’ll get back to you and follow up on these 

things. Look forward to doing that. 

Thanks so much. 

We stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM CONNECTICUT

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing. I want to thank all of our witnesses for coming before this committee today, especially Ambassador Merten who 

has done a tremendous job leading his Embassy team in Port-au-Prince during what 

was, and still is, a catastrophe. Our many thanks to you and your entire staff for 

your remarkable public service. I also look forward to hearing from the rest of our 

witnesses who bring a wealth of knowledge, experience, and passion to this matter. 

The United States Government has provided more than $1 billion in humanitarian funding for Haiti and the private sector has likewise contributed an additional $1 billion. We as a nation can, and should be, proud of that contribution and 

all the people that have been helped as a result. 

I am also proud to have authored the Haiti Recovery, along with Senator Dick 

Lugar, and thank the chairman of this committee and others for their support. That 

62 

legislation was recently signed into law by President Obama, and as a result, important steps have been taken to relieve Haiti of its outstanding international debt, and 

to set up international trust funds for Haiti to support investment in infrastructure 

including the development of electric grids, roads, water and sanitation facilities, 

and reforestation initiatives. 

However, despite these important first steps, I have a series of fundamental questions that I believe need to be answered before we can hope to see tangible and real 

progress in rebuilding Haiti. In my view, the challenge of rebuilding Haiti is not 

that we don’t know how to do it, or what needs to be done. 

In fact, it seems as though the Haitian Government has signed off on a comprehensive rebuilding plan that includes essential elements including temporary 

shelter (and moving people out of sprawling tent camps as quickly as possible), 

urban development, security, health, water, energy, infrastructure, and education. 

I understand that it includes capacity-building within the Haitian Government 

and focuses on distributing the population away from already overcrowded urban 

centers. 

So in many senses the roadmap is clear. But my question is, Who is driving? Who 

is truly leading this effort and is the Haitian Government actually capable of leading its own recovery effort? Empowering Haiti to rebuild assumes that Haiti has the 

capacity to rebuild itself, and I’m frankly not sure that is the case. What does the 

international footprint in Haiti look like and what should it look like given the 

magnitude of the devastation and the extraordinary cost involved in rebuilding the 

country? 

Will most of the burden fall on the United States or do we have truly willing and 

capable international and Haitian partners? 

I do not believe, of course, that we should occupy Haiti. We should not take lightly 

the importance of sovereignty, not discount the Haitian people’s long history of 

enduring difficult times. But we cannot pretend that Haiti can lead its own reconstruction. The goal is simple: Provide Haitians with a legitimate, functional state— 

one capable of managing the day-to-day tasks of government and providing security, 

economic stability, and social services. But I worry that how we achieve it is far less 

clear. 

RESPONSE OF AMBASSADOR KENNETH MERTEN TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY

SENATOR RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD

Question. I understand that decentralization has been an intentional effort of the 

post-earthquake phase with a particular focus on agriculture. Can you describe in 

more detail the agriculture strategy being developed? What kinds of efforts are 

being made to provide opportunities for people who have settled outside the city and 

may wish to remain there instead of returning to the city to do so? 

Answer. As we work with the people of Haiti to ‘‘build back better,’’ the United 

States Government (USG) supports the Government of Haiti (GOH) plan to 

strengthen its agricultural sector and cope with the displaced persons in the periurban centers and rural areas. Agriculture is central to the Haitian economy, generating nearly 25 percent of GDP and employing over 60 percent of the population. 

The USG, along with other donors such as France, Canada, Spain, Brazil, the InterAmerican Development and World Banks, the Food and Agriculture Organization 

(FAO) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), along 

with Haitian and USG civil society members, endorsed the Haiti Country Investment Plan for agriculture June 2. This Country Investment Plan for agriculture includes specific goals to boost economic opportunities and food security for the displaced persons and the rural sector. Consistent with the administration’s Global 

Hunger and Food Security Initiative (GHFSI) and GOH plans, USG agriculture investments will be made across the supply chain from research to the farm to the 

market to the table. These investments will help modernize infrastructure, jumpstart rural economic growth and development, empower small farmers, expand 

farmer access to markets and value chains, reestablish agricultural services and rebuild institutional capacity, and improve natural resource management. 

To ensure sustainability of the private sector investments, the USG will also work 

to build capacity at the Ministry of Agriculture. We will train and deploy Haitian 

technical trainers and extension agents. We will also help provide basic services 

such as access to inputs and supplies, and of critical importance will focus on smallscale farmers, and areas with the greatest potential to increase employment. USG 

resources will target and integrate investments across three geographic corridors 

identified by the GOH as priority growth poles for new development: (1) The Saint 

Marc Corridor which will be anchored by the St. Marc growth pole; (2) the Northern 

63 

Corridor which will be anchored by the Cap Haitien growth pole; and (3) the Culde-Sac Corridor which will be anchored by Port-au-Prince. 

Closely linked to Haiti’s ability to develop a functioning agriculture sector, and 

more urgently, to its ability to withstand future hurricanes and storms, is the need 

for radically improved natural resource management in Haiti. The USG strategy for 

Haiti will focus on watershed management and on growing the market for alternative cooking fuels, including Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), particularly in Portau-Prince and the new urban growth poles. 

RESPONSES OF T. CHRISTOPHER MILLIGAN TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY

SENATOR RICHARD G. LUGAR

Question. S. 3317 would authorize funds for assistance to Haiti in fiscal years 

2010 through 2014. 

• Does the administration have a view on the appropriate funding levels for 

assistance to Haiti in fiscal years 2012 through 2014? 

• Does the administration consider it important that the Congress authorize 

assistance for those years now, rather than doing so in connection with future 

year budget requests? 

Answer. We are pleased that Congress supports long-term efforts to help Haiti recover from the worst recorded natural disaster in the Western Hemisphere. Demonstrating through this legislation that the American people are committed for the 

next 4 years will both send a message to the Haitian people and to other donors 

about our commitment to Haiti, but it will also allow the administration to plan a 

robust reconstruction effort. At this time we do not have a completed budget request 

for fiscal years 2012 and beyond; however, we look forward to working closely with 

Congress to determine appropriate funding levels and timelines. 

Question. In your testimony, you state in connection with S. 3317 that ‘‘Given the 

uncertainties that lie ahead, it would be our suggestion to provide the administration and those of us on the ground greater flexibility and to allow us to work closely 

with you on how to best implement our programs.’’ Do you believe S. 3317 as 

drafted provides the flexibility you refer to here? If not, please indicate what 

changes in the legislation you would recommend to provide such flexibility. 

Answer. USAID appreciates changes to the bill that increase flexibility and minimize administrative burdens, particularly the change in reporting requirements to 

harmonize with the agency’s existing reporting schedule. We support the spirit of 

the legislation and look forward to working with the committee as it moves forward. 

Question. What is the administration’s assessment of the capacity of Haitian institutions to implement programs consistent with the objectives of S. 3317? To what 

extent does the administration envision the need to rely on non-Haitian implementing partners in order to implement assistance programs effectively? 

Answer. Haiti’s profound development and political challenges have been in part 

the result of weak public institutions, poor public financial management, political 

instability (10 Presidents and several coups since 1990) and vulnerability to corruption. In the absence of a strong government, international NGOs, which are vital 

implementing partners for the USG, are often relied upon for basic services. 

Our implementation strategy includes capacity-building of the government at all 

levels to provide essential services currently needed, and to plan, manage, and 

budget for operations in the long term. We will partner with the GOH to mutually 

invest in the technical capacity of the Finance Ministry and other key institutions. 

This partnership will improve the GOH’s ability to create and manage budgets in 

a transparent fashion, collect taxes, and effectively use limited resources in support 

of ongoing development. In addition, we will support and grow local civil society institutions so they can hold their government accountable during reconstruction and 

into the future. 

We are actively encouraging the utilization of Haitian-American and local firms 

and NGOs in reconstruction activities. Through outreach efforts, we are engaging 

directly with the U.S. Haitian-American community, helping them understand the 

U.S. foreign assistance strategy and how to best do business with USAID. Other encouragement may include conducting assessments of local NGOs and providing technical assistance to build their organizational capacity to receive direct awards. In 

the future, such cooperation with these firms and NGOs may include public-private 

partnerships. 

64 

Question. What steps does the administration intend to take to monitor and evaluate assistance programs for Haiti to ensure that such programs effectively produce 

the desired outcomes? 

Answer. The Department of State and USAID recognize that monitoring and evaluation are essential to measure the impact and effectiveness of our sustained investment of hundreds of millions of dollars. Under the USG post-earthquake strategy 

for Haiti, the U.S. Mission in Haiti will establish an independent monitoring and 

evaluation (M&E) team of specialists who will collect and analyze data on program 

performance, and issue summary evaluation reports. 

Monitoring and evaluation systems will be integrated into the design of every 

USG-funded program. To ensure cost-effective data collection, the USG will invest 

in a cross-sector, strategy-wide data collection platform so that each program shares 

a common system. Through this system the M&E team will track inputs, activities, 

outputs, outcomes and impacts of development activities at the project, program, 

sector and national levels. The M&E team will then use this information to evaluate 

the design, relevance, effectiveness, and impact of the development program. Attention will also be paid to the efficient use of resources, and the sustainability of the 

results beyond donor funding. 

Thorough assessment at every level will help create an overarching impact evaluation of the national development strategy. Over time, the USG will learn from the 

successes and failures of its strategy and will make course corrections as necessary. 

Future programming will benefit from evidence-based designs that take the lessons 

of past evaluations into account. 

To help make the USG Haiti strategy sustainable, these M&E systems will be integrated, shared, and transferred to public sector entities as appropriate. The USG 

will also partner with the GOH to train officials in data collection, evaluation techniques, and evidence-based best practices. 

Question. S. 3317 provides authority for assistance funds to be contributed to a 

multidonor trust fund for reconstruction and recovery expenses related to Haiti. 

• Does the administration envision providing assistance through one or more such 

multidonor trust funds? If so, please give examples of particular multidonor 

funds the administration might consider utilizing for such purposes. 

• Of the amounts the administration has requested for assistance to Haiti for fiscal years 2010 and 2011, what portion of such funds does the administration 

envision using for contributions to such multidonor funds? 

Answer. It is clear that the destruction of the earthquake substantially reduced 

GOH revenue, creating an urgent need for budget support. We anticipate that the 

Multi-Donor Trust Fund established by the World Bank will provide an appropriate 

vehicle for channeling budget support, while a United Nations Development Programme trust fund will be an essential support upcoming elections. 

The overall strategy recognizes that successful reconstruction efforts will require 

both strengthened Haitian institutions and cooperation with non-Haitian implementing partners. USAID has set the enhancement of Haitian public institutions’ 

capacity as a vital element. 

Prior to the Haiti Donors’ Meeting in New York on March 31, USAID and the 

Department of State worked closely with key donors, including the European Commission, Canada, Spain, France, Brazil, U.N. and World Bank to support the 

creation of both the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) and the Haiti 

Reconstruction Fund (also known as the Multi-Donor Trust Fund). As these two 

mechanisms are established they will create a mutually beneficial relationship that 

will be integral to aligning donors around the GOH strategy. The IHRC will also 

provide oversight, transparency, and monitoring of the funds spent through the 

Multi-Donor Trust Fund. 

The President’s supplemental budget request for Haiti references a U.S. contribution of up to $120 million to the Multi-Donor Trust Fund. Any decision for the USG 

to contribute to this fund will depend on our confidence that it is being administered 

effectively and transparently and that it would be the best use of taxpayer funds. 

USAID also anticipates granting approximately $5 million to the United Nations 

Development Programme (UNDP) to support upcoming elections in Haiti. UNDP 

will administer and manage donor contributions to the electoral budget through a 

trust fund (separate from the World Bank-run multidonor trust fund). The UNDP 

trust fund will be an important vehicle to facilitate and coordinate donor resources 

for impending elections. It will fund technical and logistical support to the elections 

commission, and supervision of the electoral process to ensure that international 

standards are met. The USG contribution will help fund election commodities such 

as ballots and ballot boxes, voter education material, and training material. 

65 

RESPONSES OF T. CHRISTOPHER MILLIGAN TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY

SENATOR RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD

Question. How is USAID seeking to gain systematic, regular participation by a 

broad range of Haitian civil society groups into the planning, implementation, and 

evaluation of its programs? 

Answer. USAID recognizes civil society groups as important partners, both in the 

immediate reconstruction process, and in the long term as we work with the people 

of Haiti to build a sustainable, democratic, and economically vibrant future. Civil 

society participation is a cross-cutting theme throughout all USAID programs in 

Haiti, and the President’s Supplemental Request for Haiti contains $62 million for 

public institution and civil society strengthening. We will support local civil society 

institutions so that they can play a key role in reconstruction and hold government 

accountable in the future. 

Community participation is a principle that serves as a cornerstone of our agency. 

USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) currently implements a program to 

enhance citizen participation in relief and recovery. It establishes venues such as 

focus groups, media programming, and press conferences, through which citizens 

and government officials discuss Haiti’s reconstruction and ways in which citizens 

can participate. It also builds Government of Haiti (GOH) capacity to use electronic 

media, Internet-based platforms, and direct interaction with community members to 

seek information regarding local and national development priorities. This improved 

information-sharing will increase government transparency and cultivate a culture 

of government accountability to citizens. In addition, OTI implements a community 

driven temporary employment program, reclaiming neighborhoods by clearing rubble from public spaces, thoroughfares, schools and hospitals. This program links 

local governments with their constituents. Members of the community join the 

Mayor in a participatory process of selecting residents for cash for work teams. 

Those people selected then have the opportunity to earn wages while contributing 

to the cleanup and rebuilding of their neighborhoods. 

We support the GOH’s decision to include a civil society representative on the 

board of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC). We also anticipate that 

the IHRC, in its role as a coordinating body, will facilitate dialogue between civil 

society, government, and other actors in the reconstruction efforts. The IHRC is 

committed to ensuring mechanisms are in place to guarantee transparency and accountability, investigate complaints and measure impact. Through these mechanisms, the people of Haiti will play a crucial part in ensuring reconstruction efforts 

progress transparently and fairly. (More information about the IHRC can be found 

at www.ihrc.ht.) 

Additional oversight and evaluation will come from the USAID Office of the 

Inspector General. Funding requested in the proposed supplemental bill will help 

the Office of the Inspector General to ensure that USAID resources in Haiti are 

used for the greatest good and that additional oversight is provided on the ground 

in Haiti. This will support an array of oversight activities, including outreach and 

education, financial audits, performance audits, investigative activities, and coordination and staffing. 

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems will be integrated into the design of 

every USG-funded program. These systems will track inputs, activities, outputs, 

outcomes and impacts of development activities at the project, program, sector and 

national levels. The M&E teams will then use this information to evaluate the design, relevance, effectiveness and impact of the development program. To help make 

the strategy sustainable, these M&E systems will be integrated, shared, and transferred to public sector entities as appropriate. The USG will also partner with the 

GOH to train officials in data collection, evaluation techniques, and evidence-based 

best practices. 

We will also encourage greater use of Haitian-American and local firms and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as we implement reconstruction activities, 

including those executed through public-private partnerships. This may include 

assessing local NGOs and providing technical assistance to build their organizational capacity to receive direct awards. We are also engaging directly with the U.S. 

Haitian-American community, helping them understand the U.S. foreign assistance 

strategy and how to do business with USAID. 

Question. While international coordinating bodies and the Red Cross are reporting 

that over 90 percent of earthquake survivors in need have received adequate shelter 

and aid, reports from many camps in and around Port-au-Prince vary widely and 

many paint a far less promising picture of the continuing emergency. The President 

of one camp, the Automeca camp, a ‘‘priority’’ camp located in Port-au-Prince, reVerDate Nov 24 2008 18:25 Dec 17, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\HEARING FILES\2010 ISSUE HEARINGS TO PREPARE FOR PRINTING\ISSUE HEARIN
66 

ported on May 3 that no food aid has reached the camp since February and only 

three food deliveries were carried out in total. Apparently, 80 percent of officially 

sanctioned camps still have no camp managers and thus no real conduit to the 

international aid coordinating bodies. What is being done to address this ongoing 

emergency situation and how can USAID encourage the international coordinating 

bodies and the cluster system to work more closely with Haitian civil society and 

the leadership structures set up by IDP camp residents to improve the coordination 

and regularity of aid delivery and assistance? 

Answer. USAID continues to play an active role in the coordination of humanitarian aid to populations affected by the January 12 earthquake in Haiti. USAID 

staff remain actively involved with the Government of Haiti and United Nations to 

improve the situation of displaced people by responding to ongoing and emerging 

needs, and contributing to the reconstruction process. USAID partners continue to 

implement programs and deliver services. 

USAID strongly encourages its partners to coordinate both with the international 

humanitarian coordination system and with members of local Haitian leadership. 

Recognizing the importance of such collaboration to the effective program implementation and prevention of overlap and duplication in programs, USAID implementing 

partners regularly conduct beneficiary identification and program design activities 

in consultation with local authorities and communities. 

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), as head of the Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) Cluster, has developed a system for communicating and coordinating with the local camp leadership. According to the latest 

data from CCCM Cluster, 63 percent of the IDP population who reside in camps do 

not have a formal camp management agency. However, at least 97 percent of all 

IDP camps have informal camp management committees, and the international 

community recognizes the vital role that this local leadership plays. IOM has provided mobile phones to the leaders of camp committees to facilitate communication 

with assigned IOM Camp Management Officers and provide access to the international humanitarian coordination mechanisms such as the cluster groups. IOM 

has trained approximately 400 formal and informal camp managers and continues 

to conduct trainings in English, French, and Creole. 

USAID is also beginning a project in which we will train community mobilizers 

to facilitate two-way information exchange regarding camp management, relocation 

processes and resettlement options. This project, implemented through IOM, aims 

to ensure that messages between the government, the humanitarian community and 

the affected population are coordinated and effective. The community mobilizers will 

maintain open communication channels to help the affected population stay abreast 

of developments and enhance their ability to make informed decisions. Concurrently, the mobilizers will collect and analyze information provided by the IDPs for 

use by the humanitarian community to better meet their needs and formulate effective policy. 

Regarding food distribution, from January to mid-April, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) and partner NGOs, with substantial USAID support, met the urgent 

food aid needs of approximately 3 million people or roughly a third of Haiti’s population, in the immediate aftermath. Currently, WFP and partnering NGOs are providing additional targeted food aid assistance to identified vulnerable populations 

(predominantly women and children). 

USAID and its partnering NGOs continue to provide services in many camps including free, safe, drinking water distribution and health care. USAID also supports 

cash-for-work and food-for-work programs nationwide. USAID regularly meets with 

WFP and implementing partners to monitor the effectiveness of these programs and 

follow up on reported programming gaps. 

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